Direct Divide
Direct Divide is Bringing Their New Album, Bridges, To The Midwest
by Mike Huberty
October 2014
Direct Divide
The symphonic hard rock trio from the Pacific Northwest, DIRECT DIVIDE is the intersection of Pop, Classical, and Rock at its most epic. The act was put together by two musicians who had original met through an ad on Craigslist (which seems amazing to me because I don’t know how anyone could communicate over the constant bitching that takes place between musicians on that site.) At the core of DIRECT DIVIDE is pianist and guitar slinger, Kevin Procter, and vocalist and violinist, Razz (joining the mononymous frontwoman club with fellow singers like SADE, FEIST, and DIDO, but decidedly more metal than any of those examples.) She’s also the first person I’ve seen rock a six-string electric violin since I saw Mark Wood in the back of Guitar for The Practicing Musician in 1991. Not only was he the world’s most ridiculously mulleted violinist since that burnout kid in your high school whose parents made him take Orchestra class, but he was brandishing a double-necked fiddle with six extreme strings. A couple of years after starting to collaborate, Kevin and Razz met up with a drummer who has the completely awesome name, Valdemar Huguet in 2013 and they probably decided with a name like that, he had to join the band immediately (when you listen to the record you discover he pretty much plays like a badass too, though. So he’s more than just a cool name.)
They all gelled in Seattle, Washington, but traded rainy days for sunshine and relocated to Los Angeles to complete their album, Bridges. Then once the album was complete, they traded steady income for free beer and bar food by moving to touring full time. They decided to go for it, following the musician’s dream and are now relocated to the road for the foreseeable future, remaining constantly on tour since April of this year. Turning into a nomad is a gutsy move, but one that belies the belief in their music and their dedication to it.
The press materials call Bridges “cinematic rock” and that’s a fairly apt description. The violin and piano combination is certainly popular in film soundtracks and some of the orchestrations sound like they could have come direct from Michael Kamen. They remind me a lot of Chicago band, SIGNING EINSTEIN, who was another female-fronted act in the early Aughts with prog elements that could mix catchy with crunchy (guitars not Birkenstocks, thank you very much.)The second track on the record, “Writing on the Wall” might be the most representative of the tone of the record as a whole. It starts off with a little acoustic singer/songwriter moment and then moves into KELLY CLARKSON Top 40-Kinda Rock territory before it busts into an extremely welcome FLORENCE + THE MACHINE chorus, and then strays into some GODSMACK-ish stomp guitars before revving up to a monster violin riff over a piano melody.
“Liar” is probably the most energetic song on the album with punk rock drums pumping through the chorus. “Running” sounds like a TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA number in parts, but Razz delivers her most hot-blooded performance on the album. “Break The Cycle” fits in pretty well with any number of the female-fronted metal bands like HALESTORM or IN THIS MOMENT, but with less butt-rock screaming. “Won’t Be Alone” is an Americana-tinged duet between Proctor and Razz (like OF MONSTERS AND MEN without the annoying “hey”s), but once she comes in, it’s a little jarring because he sounds like he’s doing David Lowery from CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN and CRACKER, and she’s emoting the shit out of her lyrics. Good chorus and nice guitar solo, though.
This is the kind of album that could use a band picture of them like standing over a cliff or at the edge of the world somewhere. Instead its some cloth squares on an impressionist watery seascape. If this were an art-rock album, I could see that, but it’s not. That doesn’t mean there’s no art to the rock, but it’s not an experimental genre. It’s straight up orchestral hard rock and it’s done extremely well. They just launched a new single, “Abduction”, that’s in the same vein as Bridges. The production value is a little better and it it just feels heavier, which seems like the right direction for the sound. Sometimes Metal with hooks and strings feels too polished and it needs more gravity to resonate vitality (something that Bridges suffers from even though the performances are uniformly excellent), but “Abduction” is getting them closer to having that edge.
I’d like to see their live show just to hear how they pull off the instrumentation as a three-piece. You’ll get your chance at Chicago’s Underground Lounge on October 14th and in Kenosha at Ashling on the Lough on October 16th.
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