Drive to Goldenhammer

It was recorded with Catherine Marks, who has previously worked with the likes of boygenius, Wolf Alice, Foals, and even The Killers and Alanis Morissette, and that smart production has led to a coherent but not overly polished sound.

If you are a BBC 6 Music regular, then you almost certainly heard the single ‘Antarctica’, which was on heavy rotation in January, and opens this 12-track album. Kicking off with a dash of laughter, it immediately captures the spirit of this joy-filled record. 

Yes, as you’ll discover, Divorce jump around genres like someone with money burning a hole in their pocket in a record shop that closes in 10 minutes, but the kernel of the whole record is here. There’s a nicely recorded guitar, the heavenly harmonies of Mackenzie-Barrow and Cohen-Towell, and some quirky instrumentation. It’s a cracking start.

Following on is ‘Lord’, which immediately shows the strength of the double-handed vocal duties as Cohen-Towell takes the lead on this one… but only marginally, as they are generally tightly knit. This track has a little more dynamics and makes you crave hearing it live.

‘Karen’ shows a softer, folkier side of Divorce, and it’s a beautiful interlude as it slowly builds to a raucous, almost show-tune-like crescendo – it’s a great track. ‘All My Freaks’ is another standout, with an engaging melody, smart, witty lyrics, and a radio-friendly break that will get you humming along.

‘Pill’ is an electronic banger, although the synth string element sounds heavily inspired by Hannah Peel’s and the Paraorchestra’s excellent ‘If After Weeks Of Early Sun’, which is no bad thing, but did crave my attention.

The closing ‘Mercy’ is one of my favourite tracks on the album and a great ending. It feels a little more Americana-inspired as opposed to a lot of the British-focused tracks here – there’s even a reference to ‘Heavy Metal Drummer’, which I assume is the Wilco song.

At the end of the day, Drive to Goldenhammer is a joy-filled, highly creative, peculiarly British album, and I can’t get enough of it. The genre shifts, the harmonies, the unusual instrumentation – it all works for me, and it could well do so for you as well.

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