Divorce are today sharing new single ‘Gears’, their first music of the year, which is produced by Catherine Marks (boygenius, Foals, Wolf Alice). Also announced today is news of their biggest UK headline show to date at London’s Islington Assembly Hall in October, and two very special hometown headline shows at Nottingham’s Bodega, all of which follow a packed Spring and Summer live schedule that includes SXSW, a UK tour with Everything Everything, and a raft of international festivals.
Finding themselves on the lips of many tastemakers heading into 2024, drawing international media support and becoming fixtures on the BBC 6 Music playlist, Divorce have already been out on the road in support of both Bombay Bicycle Club and The Vaccines this year, on the heels of 2023’s acclaimed EP Heady Metal. Lauded as a striking portrait of insecurity upon release, it marched through everything from nervy and fluttering meditations on learning to be comfortable in your own skin, to wracked documents on the bubbling frustration that comes with the flaws we know we possess but cannot fix.
A restless band by nature, new single ‘Gears’ is about juggling identities and responsibilities, and the emotional cost of trying to be all things to all people. Fitting then that ‘Gears’ itself reveals two sides, initially all soft and melodic before transforming into something jittery and intense on top of which singer/guitarist Felix Mackenzie-Barrow contemplates “I don’t remember when the gears got stuck”, while it surges to its dramatic crescendo. Of the new single, he offers: “Gears was written when I’d just moved to London and was working very long hours whilst trying to keep up with increasing band commitments for Divorce. I was spending all of my time working or playing shows and couldn’t maintain any kind of social life or keep up with the spending a social life felt like it would cost. The song came out of those frustrations.”
With ‘Gears’, Divorce once again prove themselves to be greater than the sum of their parts, with a theatricality, drama, poise and undeniable talent for gripping composition.
