On the new Drumming For Pistols, husband and wife Christa Meyer and Tim Kelley of Chicago duo Puerto Muerto capped a prolific decade by brewing its strongest serving yet of dark, rootsy torch songs. Unfortunately, on the heels of promo copies came word that the couple, and most likely the band, was breaking up. This isn't the first time a group has produced brilliant work in the wake of relationship turmoil:

Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out The Lights, X's Ain't Love Grand, and ABBA's The Visitors are just the well-known ones. Before Puerto Muerto hangs it up with a free farewell show at Empty Bottle tonight, The A.V. Club talked to Meyer and Kelley (separately) about their favorite divorce discs.

Fleetwood Mac, Rumours

Christa Meyer: They obviously were able to focus their emotional energy in such a precise way that they came up with something great. I guess the couples were already separated at the time when they put Rumours together. We weren't quite at that point, so we had a different sort of tumultuousness. There's probably more sadness when you're still dealing with the question of, "Where are we going to go from here?"

Tim Kelley: I've always loved that record, but I don't really give a shit about what was happening with Fleetwood Mac in their personal lives. I think that if the songs are good, whatever was going on that made that music come out, it's fine with me. The Mamas & The Papas, The Mamas & The Papas (Recorded while Michelle Phillips was exiled from the band for cheating on husband John Phillips with bandmate Denny Doherty)

CM: I never thought Michelle was as intrinsic to the band as Mama Cass, but she had a beautiful voice, and this definitely affected the creative sound of the record. There's a sense of unrequited longing that seems to infuse all their music, always a certain melancholy. Not the overt melancholy that's in our music, but definitely a sort of sad quality.

The A.V. Club: Now that we know about the weirdness between John Phillips and his daughter, does that change the way you hear this stuff?

CM: I know you should always be able to separate the artist from their actions—when you listen to Chuck Berry you shouldn't think that he peed on people—but I'm not big enough to totally push it out of my mind, especially when it's kind of beyond the pale like what he did.