Flipturn - Burnout Days Review
Indie-rockers take the ugly and turn it into the irresistible with a sound delirious with precision.
The first time I heard Flipturn, I immediately shared them with everyone I knew. The playful, bouncing riff that opens Sad Disco, paired with the lyric “Summer came in on a Sunday / hit me like a drunk on the subway,” felt effortlessly fresh in the indie-rock scene. It appeared the alogrithm loved them back, and soon replies of “fuck off, I’ve just heard this too! Insane!” were flooding my whatsapp. Though the Florida-based five-piece may seem like overnight stars, they actually sharpened their sound in garages and house parties, earning their reputation as “genuine road warriors.” This dedication translates into electrifying live performances—just watch their old Audiotree session and marvel at drummer Devon VonBalson’s sheer talent. For one of my most anticipated releases of 2025, their sophomore album, Burnout Days, certainly had a lot to live up to.
The album opens with two singles, “Juno” and “Rodeo Clown”, the latter a more delectable and honest offering, with a strong opening: MDMA made me love you more / It's all just a chemical feeling. Flipturn start as they mean to go on; this album is about recognising, and owning, the ugly emotions inside of us. In this vein, album standout is surely “Right”, exploding to a charged anger reminiscent of the best of The Backseat Lovers. The textured production - think the opening to “Swim Between Trees” so evocative of the thrumming rhythms of nature, until Dillon charges through a poetic hum-drum of confessions - is evidence of playful sonic architecture. Samples of the sea, waves crashing to earth, futuristic synth melodies, syncopated drums, telephone blurts, and not twenty seconds have passed. Name me and band with a slicker sound.
Similarly, the moving parts in “Inner Wave” explodes a charged friction between the tightness of their musical offering the lyrics of a disconnected, disassociative relationship. This may be the characteristic that has led other reviewing bodies, like DORK magazine, to call the album “safe”, with the offering “smoothed over to favour comfort over confrontation”. Sure, near the end of the album, the band lose momentum, before picking up the unravelling threads in titular closing track “Burnout days”. But calling this album “safe” is to mistake expertise with the innocuous. What’s so comfortable about “Sunlight”, say, where singer Dillon recounts driving his mum to rehab, bemoaning intergenerational trauma? Really, this record grapples with the effects of modern relationships, drugs, identity, the future, with a tightness that shows extreme attention-to-care. In the viral era of “messy”, Flipturn are here to scoop up the mess, present with attentive realism.
If you still aren’t convinced that this album is worth the listen, just look to the cover. The body is blown back, prised open by the force of a thousand stars that represent the inner life - but the body is still a body, still identifiable as the human. We still are, despite the ugly inside of us, despite the duller and more uncomfortable atmospheres we contain. Flipturn hold us, as they hold each other, whilst they excavate the deeply personal and dangerous. Lean in.