by René Cobar (@renefcobar)
Divorce Cop has mastered itself: the band has managed to repackage noise, over and over again, to deliver an authentic expression of a style they can call theirs. The delivery method is Yup, their 2022 record that at last puts various experimental tracks in some order; it cements a complex emotion that yours coined for the group some years ago as "frightful-delightful fun." The vibe, if it can be called that, comes from the transparent joy the band takes in recording songs and the isolated nature of their home state of Maine, which is also often a frigid place: the record feels like someone joyfully screaming into a void.
At 35 tracks, Yup has plenty of deformed bass lines and mauled drum intros that hold sinister, rooted, noise-rock undertones. The trio discovers this uniformity in sound seemingly by accident, but that is not so: tracks such as "Gontz" and "Pears" may sound like trash-jam sessions, but in fact, they organize to include a drum genesis, followed by a fuzzed out bass, sound-drowned vocals, and jagged guitar licks in that order. It sounds like a formula for song creation that has evolved over time and that within Yup finds its many directions. Take a song like "Coffee" as an example of how the band stirs its formula without stripping it of its essence: all instruments come in at once, set the mood, and then fall back in line to deliver a recognizable pattern of drums, then bass, then vocals, then guitar - boom!
This sound pattern is notable because the record contains tracks recorded at various points in the last four years, not in a single run. This fact means the group has grown and evolved to expand on its music-making formula, pushing it to the limits and making for a marvelous listen. Take a song such as "Disney Movie" as the culmination of this journey: clocking in at more than seven minutes, it is a celebration of Divorce Cop as a group; the song slips from a marching, thumping tempo into a vortex of growing noises, and ultimately bursts into a short, sweet jam. Getting to that destination takes a close-knit group of fellows who understand that one can organize noise and that noise-rock music isn't just noise.
For any group taking a stab at the noise rock genre, Divorce Cop serves as a prime example of doing it right: you find your forte and double down on it, stretching the limits à la Stretch Armstrong until it rips to spill a gooey substance that sticks hot. It may all begin with loud pounding, but the possibilities from that point on are as endless as possible if you can imagine it that way, and the group sure does. The proof of this imagination is in the dirty pudding of this record: Divorce Cop may or may not be on the 2023 radar for new music, but last year they found something most bands don't ever do, and that is a sound.