In the summer of 2012, four unassuming teenagers – singer Rob Grote, bassist Connor Jacobus, drummer Braden Lawrence and guitarist Pat Cassidy – from the small town of Lititz, Pennsylvania, were roped in to film a live studio session for YouTube on one condition: it had to be shot in single take. The result? A bonafide overnight success story for The Districts.
Within 24 hours, this live clip of The Districts’ haunting single ‘Funeral Beds’ racked up hundreds of thousands of views and roared through Reddit threads. Cue a label signing (independent imprint Fat Possum snapped them up) and a very bright future indeed for the indie rockers. Mind-boggling, the group were all only 17 at the time.
Fast forward to 2020 and The Districts have finally proven that their internet success was no fluke. ’You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere’, their fourth record, was delayed by Grote’s perfectionism. Preceding releases were solely full team efforts, but ‘You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere’ is the product of his personal vision. And what does he see when he looks out of the window? An anxious and ever-changing word, of course.
Grote’s emotive lyrics of death and despair float atop discordant bursts of strings, drum machines and ambient table loops. Channeling the woozy production and quiet optimism of The War On Drugs, nervous love song ‘Velour and Velcro’ is all lolloping basslines and twinkling lo-fi breaks. Album centrepiece ‘Cheap Regrets’ is better still; over chromatic, charged synths, Grote’s weathered vocals envision a nihilist freak-out as he satirises toxic selfie culture (“A little bit of nothing / And a whole lot of fame”).
On the spectral ‘Hey Jo’, The Districts shake up their folky roots by putting plucked guitars front and centre, Grote yearning for reassurance in this uncertain world: “Things are changing here / A little at a time / I turn my back / Another knot comes untied”. The airy track expands into transcendent shapes as a densely textured mid-track drop spirals into a cascading, synth-laden chorus.
This is their most convincing and compelling work to date. Amid all the experimentation of this excellent album, The Districts have hit a new, complex and compelling stride. Viral success can often mean here-today-gone-tomorrow, but this band have really gone the distance.
Release date: March 13
Record label: Fat Possum
