Some days you finish work on a Tuesday with no plans for the evening so you check the listings at your local music venue to see if anything interesting is on. And then some days, enticed by the description of who is playing you go and do a little digging on popular music streaming sites and decide going to see them is worth the meagre £13.72 ticket price. Which is how I ended up stood seeing hotly tipped newcomers Divorce at the Parish in Huddersfield merely hours after first hearing any of their songs.
That low entrance fee though didn’t just get admission to see the headliners, with Oscar Browne providing ample support fusing guitar and saxophone. And for the first time in my gig going history an artist had to change their set list having dropped and broken their whistle earlier in the day. Asides from the intimacy of seeing acts at tiny venues it’s always fascinating to see the additional challenges musicians face and how they overcome them.
But on to the headliners and one of the challenges I hadn’t realised when deciding to write gig reviews is that you need a fairly in depth knowledge of a band’s catalogue before being able to write anything but a brief review of a show. Which is a level of knowledge a few quick plays of songs available on Youtube doesn’t set you up with. As such a detailed song by song report isn’t possible, but their country infused alt-rock, with luscious harmonising by the four strong group over the top of Graham Coxon inspired guitar lines satisfyingly filled their hour long set
But asides from the music, lead vocalist and bassist Tiger Cohen-Towell proved an exhilarating watch throughout the show, following the trend that upcoming bands realise they can’t just rely on sounding good but have to put on a visually captivating performance to build their fan base. When relieved of bass playing duties for one early song her energy threatened to lay waste to the stage as she flew around, launching high kicks in the few empty spaces on the Parish stage.
With a debut album set for release in March 2025 Divorce face the challenge of how to step up from being a promising act on the indie scene to an established act going forward. But whether they make it big or not they provided a great evening of entertainment at a perfect price – proving again that supporting grass root venues and upcoming acts can often be a cheaper and more enjoyable experience than seeing overblown acts going through the motions in cavernous arenas.
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Divorce performed:
Alex Reviews Gigs 
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