First time I heard this record, I thought it was a secret Lostprophets side project. The second time I listened I thought it was a secret Lostprophets side project. And the third time I…ok, you get the picture. District are sadly saddled with the fact their singer sounds like Ian Watkins and the rock-styled sound they’ve adopted since disbanding Hiding With Girls sounds a lot like that which LP are having a great deal of success with. Ignoring the lazy comparisons, ‘Great Exit Lines’ is a decent record. It’s a little long and at times laborious, but there are some ‘big’ sounding songs here. ‘Air’ and ‘Flames In The Back Row’ are outstanding, while ‘ ‘-‘ and ‘The Surrender’ are more than passable too.
I think District suffer a little bit because this has come out at the same time as the new Lostprophets record and inevitably will attract a lot of comparisons. This is still a good record though – they’ve gone for the big sounding rock record and absolutely nailed it and I guess the mainstream rock press in this country will lap it up too. For me though, it’s just a little too obvious and, as I mentioned before, it seems a little long and drawn out at times. 12 tracks and 45+ minutes is lengthy for a band of this type, in my opinion anyway. Better than Hiding With Girls and a solid debut album, so thumbs up from me.
www.yournewfavouriteband.com
Golf Records
paul