Townies by Exit 380

Two and a half years, two drummers, and countless production false starts; Exit 380 is finally prepared to release its 5th full length record Townies. Recorded primarily at the band’s Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas studios this long awaited DIY project is a deliberate departure from their alt-rock roots, plunging deep into a backwoods tangle.

The eleven tracks cut into Townies continue down the vein of early-American storytelling, first glinted at on the bands highly acclaimed 2008 concept album The Life and Death of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Stone. However, the new record takes a more accessible approach than its predecessor by highlighting the good-humored swagger of the act’s long-running live show.

Fragments of Townies have been scattered through past conceptual videos and physical releases; most notably “Run for the Gold” and “Daddy Was a Freight Train” on 2010’s Cities Townies EP, and “Moonshiner Run” released for a cancer benefit program in the same year. On the full offering Exit 380 has hooked into even stronger earworm sensibilities with their first single, the country noir driven “Soul Burning Train”, and acoustic standout “Where Do We Go From Here”.

In scope and direction, Townies is the most singularly focused music recording that Exit 380 has created to date. Encircled around the project is an entire bandage of photography and hand-drawn artwork, amassed to give it an unencumbered artistic growth that sets this venture apart from the group’s past accomplishments.

In the spring of 1999, spawned by an insidious need for attention; Exit 380 began its crawl in the wet streets of Denton, Texas from acoustic two-piece bar schlock to the more sprint ready five-headed alternative act. Best known in North Texas for its 11 years of rock and roll pandering, the band has begun to wear a new tread into its heel by hitchhiking down a more swamp laden, alt-country road.

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