District Five - Come Closer (2024) [Hi-Res]

District Five are a quartet from Zurich, Switzerland who’ve spent the past six years making high-fidelity, label-resistant guitar music with a level of technique and sophistication that betrays their upbringing in the Swiss jazz scene. Whereas 2018’s debut Decoy was the unmistakable product of that particular lineage, the follow-up, 2022’s Burnt Sugar, ganvanized those sensibilities into a grand game of genre tag touching upon psychedelic rock, dream pop, and even grunge. Their latest effort, Come Closer, occupies the Goldilocks Zone between either extreme, its tight, technical instrumentation tempered by the lush guitar and synth tones, roomy arrangements, and simple, unfussy vocal melodies. If you dig Hiatus Kaiyote, The Smile, or just intricately constructed rock in general, you better have District Five on your radar. And if you don’t, well…that’s why this column exists!

Paul Amereller, drums, perc, vocals
Tapiwa Svosve, vocals, synth, sax, perc
Vojko Huter, vocals, guitar, piano, synth
Xaver Rüegg, bass, vocals