Coming off of the success of their debut album released earlier this year, Drive To Goldenhammer, Divorce are back with a new single called “O Calamity.” The song comes from the vault of some early songs written by the band, about six years ago, back when the project was comprised of only co-vocalists Tiger Cohen-Towell and Felix Mackenzie-Barrow. On “O Calamity,” the UK band fully strips back their soft-rock sound to reveal a more tender underbelly, though this comes as no surprise from a group renowned for emotional and vulnerable lyrical storytelling.
An acoustic guitar anchors the track, weaving a delicate tapestry around the co-vocalist’s intimate harmonies as soft drums fold in. “O Calamity” delves into themes of self-reflection and healing, as shown in the first verse’s confession “I only tried to draw the curtains, on a truth I could not bear.” This honest processing comes with the realization that community and kinship can be essential lifelines to guide us through life’s many twists and turns.
“O Calamity was written 6 years ago, I recall the vocals for the first verse and chorus came into my head during a shift at the bar I was working at, a pretty standard way that songwriting starts for me even still. Felix and I were performing under a different alias then, so we finished and arranged it together. We always thought it was a beautiful song and kept it in our pile of material, but didn’t include it on the album simply because of how long ago it had been written. This feels like a good time to stop hanging onto it, so here it is; a snapshot of our past written by the two of us, scarcely more than teenagers at the point of creation. It feels like an absolute world away, but good songs never get old.”
-Tiger Cohen-Towell on “O Calamity”
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