Nottingham alt-pop outfit Divorce have been tackling some of life’s darker themes with a bit of jest. Their previous single “Checking Out” even wrote about domestic murder in a wry fashion, though without giving into irony. The band’s new jam “That Hill” – which grooves and glides like “Stage Fright”-era The Band – is another bittersweet tale, one peppered with a little bit of reality.
“‘That Hill’ was written as something of a commitment to pursuing our dreams,” Divorce comment on the song. “The first lines came out of early morning shifts in a dead-end minimum wage job and the general chaos of trying to make a career of the thing you love most in the world. We’ve done a lot of driving around to gigs on no sleep and getting honked at by old men. Some of that absurdity found its way into the track”.
The video is both poignant and funny, shot from a stationary peephole in the door. Leaning into fully into their comedic chops, Tiger Cohen-Towell and Felix MacKenzie-Barrow play a married couple; we watch their spats, the mundane motions, their moments of joy and solace, like a fly on the wall. It feels allegorical to the strange challenge of marrying a working wage with the entropy of being a touring musician. It’s a big hill to climb indeed, but Divorce seem up to the challenge; they certainly have the songs to back it up.
“That Hill” is the final single before Divorce release their debut EP Get Mean, which arrives this Friday via Hand In Hive. “It was never supposed to be an EP. We believe everything we put out under the banner of Divorce has undergone a great deal of consideration in an effort to make it ours, so that links all of our music — but these singles were not supposed to be a body of work. It was when the final track, ‘That Hill’, came into existence over the summer, that we realised they were a part of the same beast. The track finishes up our year of single releases with a tiredness for this life in all its monotony and glass ceilings.”
Check out the video below.
