Following their epic headlining of The East Wing venue for this year’s Great Escape Festival, I made it a priority to watch The Districts again. The alternative rockers possess the ability to make anything sound epic, as they turn venues into one large hotbed of euphoria. If coming-of-age album A Flourish and a Spoil hinted at the band’s forward thinking signatures, then the new tracks featured on Popular Manipulations are the culmination of that and they transfer marvellously into a live setting.

Whilst the tame Monday night crowd weren’t as inebriated as the late night TGE audience, the Philadelphia-based four-piece’s sheer energy and enthusiasm ignited the gig, which lasted just over an hour. Each cathartic sonic exploration was met with eager appreciation from the room, with the band’s defining energy feeding back onto the floor.

The lyrical content for the new record is slightly more mature and deals with themes of isolation, loneliness and dependency. Frontman Rob Grote’s boundless passion bursts these lyricisms out on stage in a fashion that makes you feel the discomfort and agony he possessed when writing them.
'Violet' involves a swirling, propulsive drum framework, which acts as the perfect catalyst to these intense lyricisms and it took its place as the set opener to get the room shaking before the up-tempo old favourite ‘4th and Roebling’ had the crowd singing back every word. It was another motorik arrangement formed under the backdrop of a swirl of heavy psychedelic-rock and careful build ups.

Throughout their back catalogue, Grote has sung in a wide vocal range, with ‘Salt’ being an example of how developed his voice has now become. The same goes for the likes of ‘Why Would I Wanna Be’ and ‘Long Distance’. ‘Funeral Beds’, meanwhile, surprisingly gained one of the biggest reactions of the night. It’s probably the oldest of the tracks on display and takes on a life of its own when performed. Opening slowly with a breezy mouth organ building into a monumental piece, the song culminated with a huge crescendo.

Lead single from the new record ‘Ordinary Day’ then found Grote singing in falsetto for the poignant chorus, as the song gradually grew into a sweltering force with its piercing guitar wails and poignant chorus, whilst the epic ‘Chlorine’ will always find a place on the set list with its stop-start Pixies-esque force. “Too blessed to be depressed!” Grote then cried in new single ‘If Before I Wake’ as the eager crowd lifted their arms and chanted, as if it were some biblical appreciation under the backdrop of a Velvet Underground droney vibe, in what is possibly the finest song they’ve ever produced.

As with all Districts gigs though, the 12-minute-long ‘Young Blood’ was the highpoint right at the end. This song doesn’t have any other place but at the finale of a show, with the crowd taking control and singing back the bassline halfway through. The composition tentatively built up until the cathartic release of the lyric: “It's a long way down from the top to the bottom/It's a long way back to a high from where I am,” brought the evening to its natural close in dramatic fashion.

At their essence, The Districts make life-affirming rock music, bursting with energy that cuts through the darkness of existence – they did exactly this on Monday to prove they’re one of the most interesting indie-rock acts around today.

Paul Hill

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