The Divine Comedy - Foreverland

As you are no doubt aware, Neil Hannon is The Divine Comedy; purveyor of witty, orchestral pop since 1989. A whopping eleven albums into an illustrious career he might be, but on Foreverland - the latest Divine Comedy album - Hannon’s lyrics are still as sharp as razors, his melodies as gloriously beautiful and his power to make you laugh one second and sob the next unfaltering.

The journey to Foreverland began in late 2013. Writing songs in his studio in Dublin, Neil originally conceived of the album as a synth pop extravaganza. Early versions of “My Happy Place”, “To The Rescue” and “How Can You Leave Me On My Own” were composed using drum machines and analogue synthesisers. Neil says « Then I foolishly sat down at the piano one day and wrote “Catherine The Great”, the sort of love song you get when you watch too much BBC4 – and I knew instantly this would never fit into the synth pop mould. So I marched my armies across that Rubicon and into my aesthetic heartlands». Leaving the synths (mostly) behind, Neil kept writing. «Enough songs fitted the “tricky romance / age of empire” style for it to become the dualistic umbrella theme of the album. Why these styles knit together in my head I don’t know. It just seems to make it easier to talk about myself when its clothed in the rich fabrics of historical caricature». Three years of writing, recording and playing Stickman Golf later, we have another glorious entry into the Divine Comedy pantheon.

The Divine Comedy – A history.

Born and raised in Northern Ireland, Neil Hannon signed his first record deal aged 19. Recording as The Divine Comedy, his first albums Liberation and Promenade were critically acclaimed, but it was the 1996 album Casanova, and lead single “Something For The Weekend” that brought widespread fame. A Short Album about Love and Fin de Siecle followed, with track “National Express” from the latter album becoming the band’s first hit single. The chart success of 1999’s best of compilation A Secret History prompted a move to Parlophone Records who in 2001 released the Nigel Godrich produced album Regeneration. This was followed in 2004 by Absent Friends and in 2006 by the Choice Music Prize winning Victory For The Comic Muse.

In 2007 Neil set up his own record label, Divine Comedy Records. 2009 saw the first release on the label, a concept album about cricket. Titled The Duckworth Lewis Method the album was unexpectedly a success. It was followed in 2010 by the first Divine Comedy release on Neil’s own label – Bang Goes The Knighthood. This too was a commercial and critical success for Neil and his label. A second Duckworth Lewis Method album, the much loved Sticky Wickets was released in 2013. Foreverland will be the label’s fourth release.

Outside The Divine Comedy, Neil Hannon has collaborated with many artists including Air, Yann Tiersen and Charlotte Gainsbourg. He has composed music extensively for stage and screen including adapting beloved book “Swallows and Amazons” into a musical for London’s National Theatre, and writing a song for Kylie Minogue in the Leos Carax film “Holy Motors”.