'It's Whatever You Want It To Be': Divorce Are Finding Their Way Home on 'Drive to Goldenhammer'
Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Written by Maddy Howell
Photo: Flower Up & Rosie Sco
For Nottingham’s Divorce, the word ‘home’ has many meanings. Meeting as teenagers through the city’s tight-knit DIY scene, its first form came in that feeling of belonging as they established a circle of like-minded creatives to share their passions with. But over the past few years, a lot has changed. After piling into the van time and time again to play international festivals and headline runs, while also opening for Bombay Bicycle Club and The Vaccines, the idea of home has become a much more transient thing for the four-piece.
When we catch up with vocalist Felix Mackenzie-Barrow and guitarist Adam Peter-Smith, they’re feeling reflective. It’s the eve of the arrival of their debut album ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ and they’re sitting in a hotel lobby after wrapping up back-to-back bucket list sessions at the iconic Abbey Road and Maida Vale studios. “It’s all been a big adjustment,” Felix starts.
“We’ve had a year of getting accustomed to touring on a more intense scale and playing bigger rooms. It’s uprooted my life, so I’m not really living anywhere at the moment. I sub-let my room while we’re on tour, and I’m mostly living in the van now. Honestly, though, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”
A buzz has gradually grown around the band with each new single, but there’s no denying that Divorce’s sound is best suited to the album format. Taking in sprawling alt-country and eccentric, hook-driven indie-pop, ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ demands to be listened to slowly, to be lived in and absorbed. Theirs is a sound that needs space to fully breathe. “The first album I ever heard was [The Beatles’] ‘White Album’,” Adam says. “That and ‘Sgt. Pepper’ taught me that it doesn’t just have to be about the music. It can be a whole world, a whole universe that you have created.”
“Going into this record, it felt like an opportunity,” Felix nods. “I grew up wanting to make albums, so we worked with the space that we had and tried to approach it in the most relaxed way possible.”
From the brooding slow-build of Lord and Karen to the radiant synths and ‘60s flourishes that colour Fever Pitch and All My Freaks, ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ is a record that pirouettes between genres and influences, dancing along the emotional spectrum in the process. Given its poise and easy charm, it’s not a surprise to learn that, from the first time the band’s four members had an opportunity to write together in one room, everything felt blissfully organic.
“Tiger [Cohen-Towell, vocals and bass] and I had a couple of sessions as a pair previously, but a lot of the songs were brought in totally fresh to that room,” Felix explains. “The four of us were living in the same space, eating meals together, and not really doing anything other than working on the album. It was the first time we'd been able to make noise whenever we wanted to, whether it was early in the morning or late at night.”
“We connected in a way that we hadn't really done before,” Adam adds. “We’ve known each other for years, but all the singles and EPs we’ve recorded and released have been written apart from each other. When we were finally able to spend time in the same room, it was magical. We fully realised how connected we were as musicians and people.”
This human connection is a throughline on the LP itself as Divorce took the vibrant energy of the writing space into the recording process. Imperfections and improvisations are speckled throughout the songs, as encouraged by producer Catherine Marks, whose past work includes records with Boygenius, Manchester Orchestra and Wolf Alice. The result is that the intimacy of the group’s early sketches is preserved in their final recordings – there’s an unmistakable tenderness to ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’.
Demoed within the rural setting of The Calm Farm – a residential studio space in North Yorkshire - over the course of a year, its 12 tracks walk the fine line between nostalgia and surrealism in soundtracking the journey towards Goldenhammer, a fictional location partly rooted in the culture of the East Midlands and their childhood memories. “It’s not really a tangible place, it's just something that feels like home,” Felix elaborates.
“Goldenhammer is whatever you want it to be, and it changes on a day-to-day basis. It’s this eerie idea, and you’re not sure if it’s a memory or a dream. It symbolises something that we're all looking for when we're on the road. You’re trying to find home in some way, and that often is not a physical space. It’s the people around you, the songs themselves, the van, or whatever else it is on that particular day.”
The name is taken from a line within the gentle hum of acoustic album closer Mercy, but Goldenhammer is ever-changing. Encapsulating the feeling of heading towards something warm and familiar, it’s the type of album that encourages you to reflect on everything – both euphoric and tragic - that defines your life.
Embracing lightness and complexity while conveying raw emotion no matter what sounds they’re playing with, Divorce are feeling more settled on their path than ever before. “As a kid growing up, I can remember that feeling of creating something from nothing,” Adam recalls. “It made me feel amazing, but it also made me feel quite isolated because there aren’t a lot of people doing that in schools in the Midlands. As you move through life, you meet other creative people, and making music with Felix, Tiger and Kasper [Sandstrom, drums] is amazing.
“We’re all on the same wavelength, and it feels like a once in a lifetime thing. All of the success and the good things that happen to us are incredible, but the feeling of home for me comes when I remind myself of drawing or painting as a kid. Now, the feeling is the same, but I get to share that with three other people. Hopefully I get to do that for the rest of my life.”
‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ is out now via Gravity/Capitol.
Divorce Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Mon March 10 2025 - NOTTINGHAM Rough Trade Nottingham
Tue March 11 2025 - BRISTOL Rough Trade
Wed March 12 2025 - SHEFFIELD Bear Tree Records
Thu March 27 2025 - OXFORD Bullingdon
Fri March 28 2025 - BRISTOL Strange Brew
Sat March 29 2025 - BIRMINGHAM Castle and Falcon
Mon March 31 2025 - BELFAST Ulster Sports Club
Tue April 01 2025 - DUBLIN Workman's Club
Thu April 03 2025 - MANCHESTER Gorilla
Fri April 04 2025 - LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
Sat April 05 2025 - GLASGOW Stereo
Tue April 08 2025 - BRIGHTON Chalk
Wed April 09 2025 - LONDON KOKO
Sat December 13 2025 - NOTTINGHAM Rock City
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