Divorce’s Felix Mackenzie-Barrow has launched a new solo project called Book Of Churches, with a debut album out later this spring. Check out the soulful single ‘Song By A Stranger’ and details about a UK tour below.
The co-vocalist and guitarist of the alt-country band Divorce announced details of the solo endeavour today (Wednesday January 7), and confirmed that a full album under the Book Of Churches moniker will be released on March 6 via Gravity/Capitol.
The record comes on the heels of the NME Cover stars, Divorce, having a huge 2025, with accolades including slots at festival main stages, their first ever live shows in Europe and North America, and a headline tour across the UK. They also got huge critical acclaim for their debut album ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’, which was listed by NME on the list of Best Debut Albums Of The Year.
During the busy period though, Mackenzie-Barrow managed to find moments of downtime to pursue a new writing process, which he describes as “incredibly DIY” and “kind of naive.”
Each song written has now made it onto the forthcoming Book Of Churches album, and was written in one day, recorded the next, and left largely untouched until it was mixed by Richie Kennedy (Interpol, The Last Dinner Party).
The album encapsulates themes of lost love, dread, grief and anger, and saw the musician take a step back from his usual meticulous songwriting – instead working on breaking some of his own creature rules and having faith in “the raw contents of my brain”.
Today, he has shared the first preview of the LP in the form of debut single ‘Song By A Stranger’.
With a distinctive, emotionally-open feel throughout, the song captures the minimalistic approach seen by names like Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake, and was chosen by Mackenzie-Barrow as the first song of the album was it “in some ways it felt like the blueprint for how I wanted to make the album”.
“I wrote a note in my phone whilst in the back of the van about a shaft of light falling like an arm across the seats in front of me,” he shared. “I got home for a couple of days off and wrote the song the night I arrived. The next day I recorded it and I didn’t touch it again until Richie Kennedy mixed it in late 2025.”
As for the record as a whole, the artist said that the project feels “a bit like a travelogue”, and the songs were “were attempts at looking for a North Star that I could speak to”.
“It’s this idea of how big the world is, and how precious those few connections that you have with people are, and how you can feel those so acutely across vast spaces and times,” he continued. “Book of Churches is basically a metaphor for how I felt making these songs. These songs are like my version of whatever church is.”
Visit here to pre-order the record.
As well as announcing the album and releasing the lead single, today also sees Book Of Churches announce a debut UK headline tour, taking place this spring.
Shows kick off with an opening night at The Hope & Ruin in Brighton on April 23, and continue later in the month with shows in Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Bristol and London. One final show is booked for May 1 at the Nottingham Contemporary.
Visit here for tickets, which go on sale at 10am this Friday (January 9).
Book of Churches’ 2026 UK headline tour dates are:
APRIL
23 – The Hope & Ruin, Brighton, UK
25 – The Castle, Manchester, UK
26 – The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, UK
28 – Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds, UK
29 – The Cube, Bristol, UK
30 – St Pancras Old Church, London, UK
MAY
1 – Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Last spring, Divorce spoke to NME for The Cover and opened up about their time starting out in Nottingham’s grassroots music scene with a “self-sustaining” community of artists.
“When you don’t get a lot of outside interest, you don’t have much choice but to make it yourself,” Mackenzie-Barrow said. “Sitting in the van on your way to a show and looking around at these friends that you have, sitting in the garden in the house where we wrote the songs, having dinner together. Those are the moments that feel like success.”
Later in the year, Mumford & Sons’ frontman Marcus Mumford spoke to NME about discovering the band through their time on The Cover, and explained how he is now reaching out to tour with them.
“I would like to thank NME for introducing me to the band Divorce. They’ve just become one of my favourite bands in the world,” he said. “We invited them out on tour with us. I saw them on an NME cover. I’d never heard of them but now we’re fucking obsessed with them. They’re fucking incredible and more people should hear them.”
