If the recent ABBA record is any indication, bands comprised of former romantic partners seem to have a better shot of unexpectedly reforming several decades down the line than bands comprised of, say, bickering brothers. But just a few months before Voyage touched down in 2021, ex-husband and -wife Chris D and Julie Christensen reunited their cult cowpunk ensemble Divine Horsemen to release Hot Rise of an Ice Cream Phoenix, their first record since 1987’s Snake Handler, following Christensen’s rejoining of D’s Flesh Eater’s lineup in 2019.
Now the group has returned with another collection of punk-blues: Bitter End of a Sweet Night is set to arrive on October 27 via In the Red Records, who also put out the band’s reunion LP. Before then, we’re getting a first taste of the record with the familiarly rollicking and twang-heavy duet “Bitter End,” which parses decades of relationship experience into a single narrative. “When I write lyrics I don’t always have a preconception about what they’re about, though usually they end up being about dysfunctional relationships,” Chris D shares, noting that Christensen co-penned the song’s instrumental.
“About half the songs we write become dialogues between two characters,” he continues. “Us being ex-romantic partners from the 1980s helps, but the events very rarely refer to anything that happened between us. The songs are mashups of different people I’ve known/been with, as well as tons of movies I’ve watched. This specific one is about two partners taking different paths to fulfillment, and perhaps their child suffered because of this (that’s clearer in the video than [from] just listening to the song alone). Still, it’s up to the imagination of the listener/viewer to put it together.”
The alluded-to video features shots of D and Christensen singing intercut with vintage mid-century imagery, as if to literalize the combined influence of past relationships and various media experiences that D pulls from in his songwriting. Check it out below.
