Divorce celebrated the release of their debut album Drive To Goldenhammer with an intimate stripped-back Saturday evening performance in the Wax And Beans record shop in Bury to an attentive and appreciative crowd and the backdrop of Saturday night passers-by looking through the windows bemused at such a cool event in their town.
Across the street from Wax And Beans as you head to the Metrolink station, there's a bar that proclaims itself the North West's premier sports and music bar. As we leave enthralled by the brilliance of Divorce's half-hour set we're treated to someone belting out Keane's Everybody's Changing karaoke style, we only know this because we recognised the melody rather than any of the words. Such is the challenge of bringing music to towns outside the big cities in these times when venues are closing down. Bury has two gems to counter that trend - The Met with its legendary Derby Hall space and Wax And Beans, a record shop across the street that's become a reason in itself to visit Bury other than its famous market. A mix of in-stores and out-stores across the road at The Met has helped bring exciting new artists to the town who might otherwise not strayed past zone 1 of the Metrolink network and Manchester City Centre.Divorce are a band on the rise. Championed by 6 Music and with Drive To Goldenhammer already receiving potential album of the year plaudits in reviews their star is in the ascendancy. They're not fazed at all by the stripped down intimacy of this in-store, interacting wonderfully with a rapt attentive audience, joking amongst themselves about Felix's shirt adorned by cows wearing boots, anecdotes about eating a lifetime's worth of creme brulee for a video shoot and Tiger's "£30 off ebay" mini-glockenspiel as the latest addition to their touring kit.
The songs sound beautiful in their stripped-back form too. The five singles from Drive To Goldenhammer - All My Freaks, Lord, Antarctica, Pill and Hangman - are all performed alongside two new songs from the record that they're playing for the first or second time - Where Do You Go and Old Broken String.
The more intimate nature of the set allows the emotion in both Felix and Tiger's voices to come to the fore and when they combine they wrap around each other perfectly. Kasper's drums could overpower everything, but it's testament to him that his deftness and mastery means that they don't, whilst hidden away at the back, the intricacy of Adam's guitar playing cuts through the silence that the audience afford them and you can hear the detail of every note. There's moments where the instrumentation drops away and you can hear a pin drop between the words and it feels like you're witnessing something truly special and you can see that Divorce are taken aback by both the silent attention they get whilst performing and the rapturous roar they get at the end of each song.
Drive To Goldenhammer might sound very different on record and on the touring circuit that Divorce are about to take their debut album onto, but for one night it was distilled into something delicate, beautiful and affecting on its own.
Divorce's website can be found here and they are on Facebook.
They tour the UK and Europe through April and May - dates here
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