“It’s the bit of the A52 where there’s an underpass, it’s a service station in the middle of nowhere, or it’s the fields on the way up through Belgium” lists Divorce’s Felix Mackenzie-Barrow, before co-vocalist Tiger Cohen-Towell jokingly chimes in: “It’s Leicester!”
They’re musing over where Goldenhammer is. Only, they don’t know. Not really. Their debut album, ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’, isn’t concerned with where it’s going. Its twelve tracks document the journeys winding up and down the East Midlands motorways.
“I don’t think any of us would be able to perfectly give one explanation of what Goldenhammer looks like, because I don’t think that’s what we focused on,” Felix says, considering the fictional town’s location. “We focused on translating the feeling of the journey towards it, and that feels like the thing that is often not described.”
Divorce might’ve started their musical car journey in 2021 – when Adam Peter Smith and Kasper Sandstrøm joined on guitars and drums – yet Tiger and Felix have been packing this car for years prior in Megatrain. Those hours on the road are the journeys ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ traces.
“It really focuses on the anticipation involved in travelling, and the not knowing where you’re headed but there being some element of nostalgia to that,” Felix says, before Tiger adds their thoughts. “The album title was inspired by wanting to make it sound like the name of a play, because one of the big non-musical inspirations for the feel of the album was Radio 4”.
“It’s a station we’ve been listening to, Felix and I, for years in the car when we didn’t want to pick songs or listen to a podcast. There’s always a radio play on, there’s always The Archers, which was another big inspiration for the feeling we wanted to evoke; a thing that trundles on but feels almost forgotten in time but still exists and has a place.”
Radio plays weren’t the only reference point; the nation’s favourite stop-motion duo also played a part, Tiger explains. “We feel like ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ could be the next Wallace and Gromit film. It’s this old format that feels really classic and nostalgic and homey and warm, but also kind of eerie”.
“‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ could be the next Wallace and Gromit film — nostalgic, homey, warm, but also eerie”
Nostalgia nestles itself throughout ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’. Choose the right lens, and you’ll view it as an exploration of naivety, playfulness, and childhood innocence. For Felix, that’s exactly what their debut album looks like.
“For me, the album looks like if you imagine you’re a child and you’re probably only about three feet tall, and you see the world around you, and you see the city you live in, but you only see bits of it, like you’re never quite tall enough to look fully over the wall.”
Divorce retreated to a 1960s-built house-turned-residential studio to record their debut. Much of ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’s’ childlike innocence – the way tracks leap from rustic Americana to wintery indie-folk to chamber pop – owes itself to The Calm Farm, according to Tiger.
“The sound of the album and the arrangement choices were really informed by the place that we demoed it, which had a sort of otherworldliness to it and a golden glow around it. Being somewhere like that brought out in us this feeling of childhood lost and childhood that maybe didn’t really exist, but we yearn for it, and we run towards it.”
Running towards that feeling is easier said than done. Yet ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ proves Divorce are achieving it. Take ‘Pill’ – split into three sections, its synthy, string-laden intro folds into the golden glow of jazz-pop piano like a Laufey cut on the radio, before spilling into alt-country magic. It’s 5 minutes long, has no chorus, and each piece highlights different realms of Tiger’s queer experience.
Elsewhere, ‘All My Freaks’ throws everything at the wall in a joyful explosion of sound, while ‘Where Do You Go?’ pairs soulful lounge-pop verses reminiscent of late-career Arctic Monkeys with choruses that roar with the narrative drive of Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. It’s their embrace of childish playfulness that makes ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ special.
“That playfulness is totally part of it, and I think playfulness is actually really hard to come by,” Felix says, pausing to collect his thoughts, considering where his mind is taking his mouth. “We all grew up at a time where old fashioned playfulness was on the way out, slightly pre-screens, and I think now as an adult, trying to connect to that playfulness is so important as a songwriter.”
“I can’t help but feel like it’s relevant that just down the road from the farm we were in, there’s a juvenile detention centre. There are kids in there that are imprisoned essentially, and you can’t not feel incredibly lucky to be able to spend that time indulging in that creativity and that playfulness, and that’s a vital part of the process and something we’ve been lucky to be able to embrace, and to have that vulnerability with each other to allow that.”
Like collectively crying into tubs of Ben & Jerry’s with mates, giving way to vulnerability let Adam, Kasper, Felix, and Tiger feel their way through some of ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’s’ challenging moments, like making closer ‘Mercy’.
“I was in a very vulnerable place writing it, and it felt good to put it at the end of the album because it’s kind of like we put all the instruments down and put all the mics down,” Felix explains, warmth flowing through his voice. “It was just us sat as close to each other as possible, like we were around a campfire. I just remember trying to play the song all together and feeling so weird unless I was a metre away from everyone else, like I needed to be as close to everyone as possible”.
“So much of that track is about our love for each other and how we support each other, and it felt right to record it in that way. We just wanted to end with the feeling of togetherness, of putting things down.”
‘Mercy’’s campfire acoustics sound like sipping a cinnamon and ginger-spiced latte on an autumn walk. The music builds around a cathedral-like group vocal, which wouldn’t be possible without the vulnerability the foursome held space for.
“One of my big wants in the next couple of years is to get some experience in a choir,” Tiger shares, rarely stopping for air. “Some of the times we’ve really had to connect as one and use our brains together is when we’ve been working out four-part harmonies. It feels like such an intimate task, serving a song with our voices. So, when we’re harmonising, it’s real teamwork, and it requires everybody to find their place and support each other.”
Vocal harmonies and Divorce have gone hand-in-hand since tracks as early as 2022’s ‘Services’. Like the folksy traditions of old, Tiger and Felix don’t shy away from being associated with it – they just don’t like some of the leaps listeners occasionally make.
“It’s funny; there have been many comments saying the male-female vocal harmonies are unique. It’s like, ‘Thanks’, but also, it’s so genderless. There’s no degree to which that’s a factor in our minds; we’re just singing,” Felix states matter-of-factly, as Tiger eagerly concurs, “I’m glad that people associate us with vocal harmonies, but I dislike the part that brings gender into it; we literally just have different vocal ranges.”
Gender and sexuality sit at the heart of ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’, but it’s simply the result of Tiger being themself. “With the climate at the moment in music, it’s wonderful that queer narratives are taking a forefront. I think it’s important that they do, and as a queer person, I’m massively enjoying it. But there’s never been a conscious effort on my part to write queer songs: I am just queer, so my songs end up being quite queer, and I think there’s a sense of humour that I have as a person that comes out in a fairly queer way lyrically.”
The Bluebird Cafe-style Americana of early-album cut ‘Lord’ exemplifies Tiger’s queer experiences coming humorously to the fore. “It’s a song about being away from my partner and being horny; it’s as basic as that. A lot of the songs that I’ve written since coming out as non-binary and being in a queer relationship have ended up being quite juvenile.”
Tiger likens it to going through “an emotional second puberty” and figuring out what they want. It’s also a reflection of how pursuing music affects those who want to maintain loving relationships.
“I think it also ties into my relationship with music and how that has impacted my love life, and what the consequences of trying really hard to make a band work are and how that can take you away from your personal life,” Tiger reflects, before adding it’s something Divorce share collectively. “That’s a theme that runs consistently through the album whoever has written the lyrics, because we’re all people that have ended up in that position in one way or another.”
“It’s never been a big deal what the songs are about, who they’re reaching to. We just write what we feel. We all move through the binary when we’re writing music with each other as people. Sounds so annoying but it’s true, I’ve never thought about my gender when I’ve been writing with my band and that’s a nice space to exist in.”
Still, Tiger doesn’t deny that ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ has “definitely got a few gay moments”. The four-minute foray into melancholia that carries ‘Karen’ from a wintery walk through woodland into a fiery explosion of fuzzy 90s grunge is not only one of Divorce’s boldest mid-song transitions, but also serves as a defiant display of Tiger’s queerness.
“I actually think the gayest moment in the whole album is the track dedicated to Karen Carpenter. To write about a dead female celebrity feels like the gayest thing I could have possibly done somehow. It’s always been a dream of mine, paying homage to the song that Elton John wrote about Marilyn Monroe, and then Diana. I think a lot of queer icons revere women in pop culture, and it feels like a homage to that.”
“To write about a dead female celebrity feels like the gayest thing”
As much as ‘Karen’ pays homage to Carpenter, the traces of her life in its lyrics connect the past with the present, like a satirical stab at the cyclical nature of the music industry. When Tiger rolls out lines like “you’re right out like a cannonball, playing a show to some hundreds of reptiles who lick your silver hands and say silver’s out of style now, Karen,” you sense a mirror being held up.
On the flipside, Divorce, and by extension ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’, has become a safe space for fans to explore their queerness. Though none of their songs deliberately aimed for this, the result has left Tiger overwhelmed with pride. “I’m really, really glad to see now at our shows more queer fans. There’s been some really nice messages from fans that appreciate the queerness and appreciate us wearing that on our sleeves as a band.”
“It’s so massively significant when you feel that you can connect with people who have heard your music and they feel that they have felt a similar thing to you. If it provides any sort of comfort to listen to music that validates those experiences and celebrates those experiences, the good and the bad parts of them, then that’s absolutely huge for me.”
Like a mother caring for her brood, Divorce find providing comfort to their listeners drives their songwriting. ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ searches for home, wherever that may be, and if listeners find warmth within their songs, they’ll know their job is done.
“I like to think that people will find warmth within the lyrics,” Tiger says, taking a beat before adding. “I don’t know if we try too hard to make the lyrics relatable, but I think it comes naturally when you write honestly. We’re all quite basic emotional creatures, and a lot of the same patterns occur, so what you would take from along the way is the trials that many artists go through that have come from a position like ours.”
We’re not all musicians, but that doesn’t matter. Adam, Felix, Kasper, and Tiger find their own trials in music as universal as anyone chasing a goal. They hope listeners unearth this in their songs.
“I think each song feels like a step along the way, and there really is no end to the journey. Each song is just a little window into a narrative that has ruled our lives through the last few years,” Tiger says.
“All four of us have different experiences of the world, but we’re all, in essence, trying to do the same thing. We’re working towards something that we’re passionate about, and I really hope that comes across through the songs and that people can maybe feel seen by some of the songs and feel solace listening to them, and go through a range of what I hope to be positive emotions.”
Making ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ together as a collective, rather than four individuals, has changed them and taught them lasting lessons. Funnily enough, they’re all different depending on who you ask.
“It’s been a good reminder that ego really doesn’t have a place in the room if you’re trying to be truthfully creative,” Felix reflects, carefully pulling his next sentence. “The album was a real lesson in putting down that ego and listening to each other because, in those environments, there are things that come out and surprise you and stick with you.”
Tiger shares the same sentiment but sees it from another angle. “There’s tension, that will never not be a thing between artists who have egos and back themselves, which we all do. Sometimes you are like, ‘I know this is the right idea and I need you to all just trust me’. But then, you can also be like, ‘Actually, somebody else feels like that too, and I’m just going to trust that they know what they’re doing, and I’m in a band with them for a reason, and just let it go’.”
That tension emerged when choosing which songs would make the drive to Goldenhammer and which would stay on the shelf, as Tiger suggests. “You can get attached to a certain part or even a certain song. It was an emotional time, but nothing really dies in that sense because everything has the potential to be reborn. An idea is never really dead; it just waits.”
Waiting is something Adam, Felix, Kasper, and Tiger are learning to accept. They hint at their eagerness to begin album number two, yet they know that nobody has heard ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ yet. Their readiness for the next chapter doesn’t mean they’ve left their debut behind.
“I still feel just as proud of all those songs as I did when we were making them,” Felix says, his smile evident in his voice. “It’s been a year since we made the record; I still don’t feel like I’ve moved on because those songs feel truthful.”
If ‘Goldenhammer’ represents all the places in between – the service stations and underpasses of this isle’s roads – then the journey it documents fulfils the mission Divorce set out to complete.
“What we were aiming to make was something that was larger than ourselves and had its own life, and I think that’s what you hope you can make with an album. So far, that’s what I feel that we have made.” ■
Taken from the March 2025 issue of Dork. Divorce’s debut album ’Drive To Goldenhammer’ is out 7th March.
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