Grounds for Divorce

Loud music can be a very cathartic and beautiful thing, especially when it’s abrasive and assaults one’s senses like an elbow to the jawbone. Glaswegian quintet Divorce understand this all too well in their quest to fuck shit up and thoroughly pleasure themselves in the process.

Comprised of Sinead Youth (vocals), Andy Browntown (drums), VSO (bass), Hillary Van Scoy (guitar) and Vickie McDonald (guitar), the group played their first show just over a year ago and have been raising the blood pressure of unsuspecting gig-goers ever since. When asked what initially brought them together? “Fucking NOISE!” is the immediate answer offered by vocalist Youth, much to the delight of the other band members.

Purveyors of so-called “nae wave” (which functions more as a cheeky point of reference rather than a declaration of stylistic allegiance), Divorce let loose a sound that functions on a variety of levels and exists within a range of contexts. The abnormal guitar lurch of Voidoid Robert Quine marches assuredly alongside the avant-punk snarl of The Ex, while the prog-metal strangeness of The Need locks horns with the frustrated energy of mid-70s Pere Ubu. Van Scoy explains: “When we met up, we knew we had a similar idea – kind of – about what we wanted to make, but it wasn’t written in stone.”

A debut EP recording was released in 2009 on Optimo Music, the imprint label centered around Glasgow’s genre-defying club institution, who offered to put out the record via text message while the band was in the middle of playing their second gig. Packaged in creepy artwork depicting rotten, crooked teeth and bleeding, diseased gums rendered in mixed media by McDonald, the vinyl-only limited edition ten inch features four songs that the group have repeatedly inflicted on virgin ears during last year’s UK tour with Ultimate Thrush, with whom they will share a split cassette on the Milk label in the coming months.

Divorce recently recorded new material for a split seven inch on Merok Records with London screamers Comanechi, who will join them live at two of the central belt's most prolific underground venues of recent times, Captain’s Rest and Sneaky Pete’s. After these shows, the band will attempt to take a much needed break from gigging and start working on new material, unless they keep getting offered gigs they just can’t refuse. “We’re not very good at saying no...yet”, confesses Browntown.

The music of Divorce is not for everyone. It’s perverted, brutal, sweaty and uncompromising. Kind of like really good sex that keeps you horny for days afterwards. The songs have a rigid and propulsive backbone of bass and drums, over which layers of guitar noise and half-shouted vocals swirl and collide. But there’s something very cerebral and introspective going on as well. Can you handle it? The only way to find out is to experience it firsthand. They won’t hurt you. On second thought, maybe they will, but it’ll be for your own good.