Book of Churches - Book of Churches (Album Review)
Tuesday, 10 March 2026
Written by Jack Press
There is something disarming about the naivety at the heart of ‘Book of Churches’, the debut solo record from Divorce guitarist and co-vocalist Felix Mackenzie-Barrow. Written in a day, recorded the next, and left largely untouched until mixing, its 10 songs possess an unguarded quality, with the sense of a songwriter thinking aloud. It is both its greatest strength and its central limitation.
The album works best when Mackenzie-Barrow's lyrics are sharp enough to carry the intimacy of the recording. Big Love finds beauty in the push and pull of life on the road, pinkish-sunrise acoustics framing a quietly devastating observation: "It's a precious thing / to know a love so big / that it goes on loving after all the tears dry.”
Hard Ride contrasts new love with the exhaustion of touring, while All The Good Things conjures campfire warmth through a Mumford & Sons-esque banjo.
Closer Stones In Your Bag, with its ethereal piano and swirling synths, represents the album’s most arresting moment and feels like a genuine glimpse of where this project could go.
But making 10 songs in the same way, in the same room, with the same instrumentation, has also flattened their emotional range.
By the midpoint, Mackenzie-Barrow’s formula of close-up acoustics, reflective lyrics, and understated melodies, become a constraint rather than a canvas. Catalpa In The Sky’s discordant piano patterns barely take off, let alone land, and for all their quiet charm North Atlantic Ocean and I Lean blur into each other.
Without Divorce co-vocalist Tiger Cohen-Towell’s vocal depth as a counterpoint Mackenzie-Barrow’s delivery, as compelling as it is, can only carry so much weight. You feel that absence across its quieter stretches. Made almost entirely on instinct, ‘Book of Churches’ earns your patience rather than commands it. It is not a masterpiece, but it bears the fingerprints of someone who might one day write one.
Book of Churches Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu April 23 2026 - BRIGHTON Hope & Ruin
Sat April 25 2026 - MANCHESTER Castle Hotel
Sun April 26 2026 - GLASGOW Hug and Pint
Tue April 28 2026 - LEEDS Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen
Wed April 29 2026 - BRISTOL Cube
Thu April 30 2026 - LONDON St Pancras Old Church
Fri May 01 2026 - NOTTINGHAM Nottingham Contemporary
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