Drive to Goldenhammer: Divorce’s Debut Is An Album You Won’t Want To Split From
Featured Image Credits: Far Out / Flower Up and Rosie Sco
Hailing from Nottingham, Divorce has been making music together since 2021. Prior to their formation, the band members had been friends and releasing music separately in the Nottingham scene. After releasing a spattering of EPs and singles between 2022 and 2024, March 7th 2025 brought Divorce’s debut album, ‘Drive to Goldenhammer.’
The album derives its title from the concept of driving to the fictional town of Goldenhammer. Centring the album around an intangible place was an intentional decision from the band to highlight the importance of the journey, rather than the location, as the heart of the album. Sure, when you get to where you want to be in life, it's great, but what's better is finding yourself and your family along the way.
For this album, Divorce worked with producer Catherine Marks (The Killers, Wolf Alice, boygenius, Foals and Manchester Orchestra) who also produced their singles 'Gears' and 'My Room' in March and June 2024.
The opening track ‘Antarctica’ packs a theatrical punch, setting the scene of a car cruising long, long roads. Being stuck with nothing but one’s thoughts on this car journey has unsurprisingly prompted some deeply introspective lyrics, as vocalists Felix and Tiger confront the contradictory nature of life and love:
“It comes and goes
Like someone pulling on a rope that gets
A little longer each time I get free
I was made to love you
But the living made me weak”
The latter half sees the fiddle kick in, and the song reaches new levels of cinematic. ‘Antarctica’ is a thoroughly nostalgic song which wouldn't be amiss in the final scene of an A24 coming-of-age film.
‘Lord’ adopts a darker tone, featuring significantly heavier guitars - quite fitting given that the lyrics share the anxieties of a partner often away from home. Right at the midpoint, Tiger and Felix’s harmonies sound truly heavenly. These harmonies thankfully make a reappearance for the song's close, tying together the dissonant guitar riffs.
In Divorce’s January article with Rolling Stone, Tiger cited Queen among some of the band’s influences, while talking about their single ‘Pill.' And, you can begin to hear Queen’s influence from the tertiary track, ‘Fever Pitch.’ From the acapella harmonies which open the track, and the gentle piano as the song progresses, to the crooning guitars that truly carry this track, it’s an impressive moment on the album.
Track number four, ‘Karen’ slows things down a little in terms of tempo, and Tiger takes the reins, screaming their heart out over an instrumentation that sounds plucked from Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’.
Don’t fear, Divorce doesn't let their listeners dwell in their sorrows for too long. Pay close attention when you get to this point of the album, you may be fooled into thinking that it’s all the same, long song, because the transition between ‘Karen’ and ‘Jet Show’ is one of the most satisfying I’ve heard in a while. ‘Jet Show’ is another cinematic masterpiece, weaving romantic imagery into the lyrics from the get-go. My personal favourite lyrics from this song are:
“Loving you with open arms
Kissing you with open eyes
And if I make it home on time
I'll buy you every star in sight”
‘Parachuter’ is the midpoint of the album, and adopts an awfully pessimistic tone, warning listeners to “cry your eyes out, we'll be leaving soon.” The sparkly synths on this track are very Bombay Bicycle Club-esque, which is hardly surprising given that Divorce have supported the band on tour before. ‘Parachuter’ is a solid song, however, on an album full of breathtaking tracks, it can become a little lost amongst the noise of everything else.
Track seven, ‘All My Freaks’ was one of the few tracks to receive a release as a single, prior to the full album dropping. So fans have had this on heavy rotation since 2024 and you can bet it’s been heavily featured in mine since I discovered the band. The song tells the endearing tale of craving connection despite our intrinsically flawed nature as human beings. Why dwell on our personal downfalls when the world is so full of wonderful people?
The following song, ‘Hangman,’ also saw a 2024 release as a single, and really showcases Tiger and Felix’s ability to write a catchy hook. I promise, one listen and you’ll be singing, “I care about you already, I wanna lift you up, I wanna lift you up,” all day.
'Pill’ saw the band choose an unorthodox route with the song’s structure. When talking with Rolling Stone in January, Felix described this track as not having “...a chorus. It’s just basically three mini songs.” For a song that focuses so heavily on nostalgia, it was a daring but correct choice to structure the song in this fashion, as it lends it a sense of childlike naivety and whimsiness.
‘Old Broken String’ is another slow-paced moment for the album. Felix and Tiger drift over the top of pensive strings and sorrowful piano. It falls ever so slightly flat for me, personally. Alas, the rest of the songs are simply too good, drawing the weaker points down just by sheer comparison, rather than the songs being flawed themselves.
The penultimate track, ‘Where Do You Go’ interrogates a vacant party. The creeping bass matches Tiger’s unrelenting questioning, asking where this person retreats to internally, so they can hide so effectively from the prying eyes of others.
Divorce sends their listeners off with the song ‘Mercy,’ reassuring the titular Mercy that “I really don’t mind driving you home.” This song feels like a fitting close to such a theatrical album, hammering home to listeners that “I’ll always love you like that.” The acoustic guitar transforms the song into something you’d expect to hear while sitting around a campfire on a hot summer’s night.
This is a gorgeous debut, and Divorce have set a high standard for themselves going forward. After listening to ‘Drive to Goldenhammer,’ (many, many times) it’s safe to say I won’t be splitting from Divorce anytime soon.
