The Divorce

by Hannah Levin

If I was a young emo fan who had grown up on Jimmy Eats World and Jets to Brazil, I think I'd be pretty pissed about the current state of my beloved genre. Whether you blame the benign sorrow of Dashboard Confessional or the neutered spirit of mall punk dreck like Saves the Day, the genre which was once defined by impressive slabs of angular, discordant punk softened by passionate, believable teen angst has come to sound simply like a pack of lily-livered whiners hiding behind homogenous minor chord progressions.

And this unfortunate reality is exactly the reason why a band like the Divorce should be poised for chart-rattling success.

Now don't get me wrong, this brash young Seattle band isn't textbook emo--they're far too dynamic to fall under that singular label--but they utilize the key elements that make the fans go crazy and wisely drop the schlock that's watered down the genre's previous potency. They have the requisite drop-dead pretty frontman: Singer-guitarist Shane Berry has an arrestingly beatific face and a sorrowful sprinkling of heart-shaped tattoos, but he's no Chris Carrabba clone. His vocal presence is darkened with shades of Cure-like, dour delivery, and refreshingly toned down by a winking, sardonic wit that keeps everything from getting too damn serious. The aggressive, adventurous style of second guitarist Garrett Lunceford functions almost like a built-in defense against cliché: His guitar lines somehow arc regally without sailing into shallow, radio-friendly waters and his uncompressible natural energy never feels forced.

Listening to rough mixes of their forthcoming sophomore release is both pleasurable and perplexing. I can't figure out why someone at Jade Tree or even Lookout! hasn't snapped these kids up--they still don't have a firm record label deal, and they've yet to tour widely beyond the West Coast. Predicting the whims of A&R suits is futile, but I certainly hope it isn't too much longer before someone catches this band live and realizes the Divorce is the perfect band for older emo kids who are getting hungry for something more self-effacing and less self-flagellating.

read it here: http://www.portlandmercury.com/2005-01-06/music3.html - THE NEW MINOR CHORD: The Divorce Challenge the Emo-Quo

by Bill White

(show with Joan Jett)
The Divorce, one of the best in a burst of new Seattle bands, continues to improve. Barry is a confident and charismatic front man who, although not yet the lyricist of distinction he would like to be, is developing a narrative style that hasn't been seen in the United States since Scott Walker. Musically, the songs are expansive and elegantly arranged.

read it here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pop/166711_jettq.html - Show Review

by Hannah Levin

For Northwest bands, a jaunt to the East Coast for publicity purposes is an expensive, exhausting endeavor that can yield wildly varied results. Even with all the current hype about New York, the spotlight for breakout bands in Gotham City is cramped enough as it is, making things even harder for an out-of-town act hoping to make it further into public consciousness via splashy press accolades or suit-filled showcases. Most bands want to make it big in some sense, but the law of averages maintains that more often than not, larger cities are fine sieves that only allow a couple acts up from the underground and into mainstream consciousness. Still, you're not gonna make it on Conan or sign to V2 just by playing the Crocodile once a month or doing the requisite Thursday-night rounds at the Cha Cha.

It was with this in mind that The Stranger went along with two buzz-worthy Seattle acts--the Divorce, a rising indie rock band with commercial potential, and the Turn-Ons, a more mature, artistically adventurous band a-as they navigated their way through the music industry hierarchy over the course of a four-day trip to New York in June. Both groups have paid their dues and made a dent locally-the Turn-Ons released three records over four years on their own label (Childstar Records), and the Divorce released an extremely well-received debut last spring on the now-defunct Fugitive Records. Led by their shared manager, Christian Dowager, the bands were looking to nurture a new fan base in New York City and catch the attention of the producers, journalists, and A&R folks who can give hopeful acts an inlet to broader audiences. What follows is a diary of their hot, sticky descent into the Big Apple, a week of searing heat, serious rocking, and perpetual partying.

Wednesday, June 15, 9:15 pm
the Spice Market
Under the well-meaning and courteous direction of Dowager, a Brit-by-way-of-Los Angeles who relocated to Seattle last year to manage the Turn-Ons and (more recently) the Divorce, we find ourselves "meeting and greeting" at the Spice Market, a celeb-studded Southeast Asian restaurant in the meatpacking district, presumably under the guise of creating interest in the shows both bands will play over the next four days. We are joined by an assortment of random, beautiful guests who don't seem particularly interested in either band, including a svelte, semi-snarky publicist responsible for promoting parties for W, Vanity Fair, and Spin, as well as a disarmingly arrogant young man claiming to be the personal assistant for painter Chuck Close. I sip my $14 ginger-infused margarita, marvel at our $60 micro-appetizers, and begin fantasizing about finding a more suitably sordid dive bar that will let us smoke after hours. Turn-Ons guitarist Corey Gutch shares my discomfort and hopes that our next scheduled stop, a private party for both bands at the Marquee Club (where members of the Turn-Ons are scheduled as guest DJs), will be more our speed.

Wednesday, June 15, 11:30 pm, the Marquee Club
No such luck. Marquee turns out to be an opulent cliché, complete with multiple velvet ropes, Bergdorf blondes, trivial celebrity sightings (Natalie Portman, anyone?), and more insanely expensive drinks. In fact, our "private party" is simply access to the bottle-service-only area, which essentially translates into a poor man's Puff Daddy affair: We purchase a $60 bottle of mid-range vodka and are given a short, sleek couch to sit on in an upper bar that is far from private. Our place in the scene pecking order is further clarified when no one can give the band a lucid answer about their scheduled DJ slot. Although Eli Anderson, a Sonic Boom employee and friend of both bands, manages to spin a few tracks from Seattle bands the Girls, A Frames, and the Intelligence, we soon realize the turntables are about to be hijacked by indie filmmaker Larry Clark's crowd, including handsome delinquent Leo Fitzpatrick (AKA the really bad kid in Kids)--an interloper that Turn-Ons producer/multi-instrumentalist Erik Blood quickly welcomes.

"He's playing a song I've been looking for for years," Erik tells me excitedly. He heads over to ask Fitzpatrick about the record ["Bam Bam," by Sister Nancy] and seems so thrilled he no longer cares that he's lost his DJ slot. "He told me what album to find it on--now that's a cool guy!" Erik gushes, discreetly igniting a Camel Light outside of the gaze of the adjacent meathead bouncer. The thrill is short-lived: The predictable NYC rock soundtrack of Interpol and Franz Ferdinand begins thumping through the speakers, a meathead bouncer tells Erik to put out his cigarette, and our collective interest begins to run low, as does our bottle of vodka. "C'mon! Isn't this supposed to be New York City, cultural hub of all things cool?" laments Erik. We pay up and head out in search of smoker-friendly bars, cheaper drinks, and hopefully edgier ambience.

Thursday, June 16, 1:20 am, the - Biting The Big Apple: Two Seattle music scene frontrunners, the Turn-Ons and the Divorce, take their

by Kathleen Wilson

In Manic Pop Thrill, her 1993 collection of essays on Britain's early "alternative music" industry, author Rachel Felder discusses "grebo" bands--grebo being the term journalists had given to a vitality encompassing youthful angst without grunge's heavy somberness. The Jam and the Clash influenced grebo bands Mega City Four, Senseless Things, Pop Will Eat Itself, and the Wonder Stuff, whose songs bristled with the crackling energy of teenage rebellion. "Grebo is about a 15-year-old kid feeling trapped," says Felder, "yet who wants to bolt out and explore life instead of ending it. If Nirvana is an angry kid pounding a punching bag, Mega City Four is a revved-up kid dancing in front of his bathroom mirror, dreaming of how his life could be better and free."

A similar unchecked vivacity defines the songs on the Divorce's There Will Be Blood Tonight. Released last year on Fugitive Recordings, the Seattle band's debut sounds like a powder keg of frustrated desires and wishes felt by an outsider looking in. Singer and guitarist Shane Berry spits out lacerating lyrics like, "I tried so hard/to get every single word out/that my tongue carved little scars/in the roof of my mouth" ("Catch You Disappointed"), or "We'll be calling a roll call/for people weak in the knees/and then we'll call them all liars/because we do as we damn well please" ("Knife and Kids") while he and his bandmates--bass player Jimmy Curran and drummer Kyle Risan--articulate fits of envy-driven disgust and a spirit that won't go down easy. Here, boredom fuels certain bombast, the kind that reminds the listener what a blast it was to be young and smarter than everyone else.

When I express my love of "Knife and Kids," new guitarist Garrett Lunceford explains that the writing process found the song to be completely transformed from how Berry originally thought it should be. The singer agrees: "And then Kyle made it something that was absolutely nothing like Garrett was looking for when I asked for his input..." he says, before Lunceford finishes the thought with, "but it sounded really cool... we were looking for a straightforward, '90s guitar-rock sound and it ended up coming out more complicated, and the verses were never straightforward-rock-sounding in the first place." Adds Berry, "Still, driving guitars are the first thing you hear in the song. A lot of the songs on the album are guitar-rock songs, but the [new] stuff we're playing now is much broader in terms of ideas." "It's kind of like the progression from [Radiohead's] Pablo Honey to The Bends," says Lunceford, "only on an entirely less important scale."

Now with every member having lived through adolescence, the Divorce suffer the pains caused by a different sense of frustration: Seattle's fickle live-music fans. Every bit as talented as some of the more acclaimed bands who came out of the gates in the winning position, the Divorce and their peers the Lashes, Visqueen, and Alien Crime Syndicate have stalled just short of the prize. But that doesn't mean the newly expanded band has to stay there--in fact, the quickly approaching new year looks to be full of opportunity for all four of those determined journeyman outfits. (Not only did an AWOL Courtney Love, who only just missed the Divorce's recent set at the Derby in Los Feliz, express her interest in the band, but some labels have expressed theirs as well.) "It has been kind of frustrating because we were starting to look forward to what signing to Fugitive would lead to," says Berry. "At times it's kind of nice being in that middle ground where we're building our own thing and not trying to ride the coattails of those other bands."

Ensuring things stay fresh and unfaded, the addition of Lunceford, as well as a more prominent keyboard presence, has punched up the pop sound embedded in the Divorce's volatile rock sensibilities. And given the diversity of each member's personal influences (which they are loath to give up in the presence of a tape recorder, aside from Risan, who readily offers Van Halen), it's unlikely their songs will settle down to predictable cliché anytime soon. "Since we're still in that middle level of popularity," says Lunceford noting that their second album will be the first one many future fans will hear, "we can bounce new ideas off our audience because it's growing along with us."

read it here: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=16628 - Who Cares Who Wins: The Divorce Happily Wait Their Turn

by Jeannette Crow

The only thing better than There Will Be Blood Tonight, the first full-length from The Divorce, is the Seattle band’s live show. So for the time being, whenever you’re not seeing that, you should be listening to this.

The music is hyperfast, featuring melodic guitar hugged tight by solid basslines and driven by high-performance, high-speed drums. Lyrics range from conversational to occasionally brilliant. ("All we want/is what the ads have been promising us/to be gold/and shine enough/that we don't have to live by the rules/we'll make our own up.") Shane Berry’s singing is skilled and emotional without ever stopping the rocking.

In the tradition of the best melodic punk rock, There Will Be Blood Tonight makes you want to sing along, dance around, jump up and down, and go on a drive long enough to hear the whole album, drumming on the stereo the whole way. At some point you will probably also be compelled to kick some ass. Then you will be similar to The Divorce. - There Will Be Blood Tonight Review

BY Peter Atkinson

Grade: B+
Seattle might not be the music mecca it once was, but every now and again an interesting new band will emerge from the city, like offbeat trio The Divorce, whose debut takes some getting used to, but is certainly worth the effort. The band is all over the map on Blood, offering just about everything but the prototypical sludge - springy, punky pop meets loud, sloppy rawk and roll meets emo-core. And with tracks like "Samoa's Revenge" and "The Force Of The Iron Cobra," the band's adventurousness is matched by its irreverence. Pretty ambitious stuff for a threesome, but give The Divorce credit for giving it a shot and, for the most part, pulling it off.

read it here: http://mag.meanstreet.com/testspins.php?issue_id=43 - There Will Be Blood Tonight Review

by Daniel Mitchell

The Divorce is a band of guys who pay equal homage to the angular stylings of Braid and Jazz June and to the straight-forward, steamrolling power pop of Smoking Popes and Green Day. The combination is perfect, and the result is There Will Be Blood Tonight, an album of power pop sing-alongs that get the toes tapping and the air drums pounding.

I guess what I like most about this record is the way that these guys deliver their songs. They love music, and their love for playing music comes out in the delivery. The Divorce are not looking to be cool scenesters or to score chicks. They simply like to blow people away with enormous guitars, plodding bass lines and overpowering drums. It's just so refreshing to hear a band that is totally having a blast doing what they are doing.

These guys will be called "emo" due to lyrical content, but they're really a pop band, in the same way that All American Rejects are more a pop band than an "emo" band. The vocal melodies are so sweet and singable that I'd be surprised if these guys don't sell a lot of copies of this record. It could be, though, that The Divorce might rock a little too hard for their own good. "Samoa's Revenge" is just a bit too aggressive and tough for mainstream play. Remember, these guys do a lot of the weird angular guitar stuff that Jawbox, Braid and the like popularized, and mainstream radio didn't accept Jawbox (accepting Jimmy Eat World and All American Rejects is one thing...). There is also a bit of screaming back up vocals here and there, reminiscent of Grade, which most teenagers will find too unsettling.

"Catch You Disappointed" could be a big radio hit, if the stars are aligned for The Divorce. It's poppy, rockin' and very upbeat. It reminds me of recent Jimmy Eat World stuff. All I know is that There Will Be Blood Tonight is a fantastic album in the same way that The Get Up Kids' Four Minute Mile was fantastic; it's poppy and happy, but it rocks enough to appease the punk inside all of us.

read it here: http://www.ink19.com/issues/august2003/musicReviews/musicD/divorce.html - There Will Be Blood Tonight Review

(Rating: 4++)
The Divorce - There Will Be Blood Tonight (CD, Fugitive, Rock)
The Divorce is a tight, loud, and intense hard rock trio from Seattle. There are traces of a variety of bands in these guys' music...including early Gang of Four, XTC, and Joe Jackson. But make no mistake, this is no retro outfit. These gentlemen are playing modern rock...infused with plenty of energy and (sometimes) screaming yelps and hollers. For the most part, this band plays buzzsaw guitar rock/pop music with intelligent melodies and pulsing rhythms. The band is at their best when they are concentrating on playing like maniacs while still retaining a strong melodic sense. (Some of the songs would have been greatly improved by leaving out the intense screams...they just don't seem relevant considering the exceptional quality of the songwriting.) Good stuff. The next release from The Divorce could be an even more direct hit for the band...

read it here: http://www.babysue.com/LMNOP-Reviews-June-03.html#anchor329932 - There Will Be Blood Tonight Review

by John Richards

The long-awaited full-length debut from this Seattle trio is filled with catchy, aggressive and smart tunes that ride the voice of Shane Berry to pop-punk heaven.

read it here: http://www.kexp.org/reviews/review_artist.asp?artist=Divorce&action=genre&type=0&genre=51 - There Will Be Blood Tonight Review

by D. Parvaz

...The crowd, which somehow managed to comply with the no-moshing policy, thickened a bit (in numbers and hormonal content) when the four boys of The Divorce took the stage.

If all goes well, as it has so far, this band will be huge.

"It's obvious to everyone who looks/ you've got the clothes/ you've got the pose/ and you've read the books," belted frontman Shane Berry in the band's opening number, "The Man Moan." One could accuse The Divorce of a similar studied cool, except for one small thing: They're brilliant. Their show wasn't just about rock-star affects -- they have a strong new wave/rock sound, great songs and an explosive stage presence.

If Holden Caulfield were to grow up, get out of the mental institution and start a band, The Divorce would be it. They played 11 songs before calling it quits, leaving the crowd wanting more.

read it here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pop/137359_next30.html
- Local Stage Sizzles With The Divorce