Indie rock band flipturn take us track-by-track through the heart of their smoldering sophomore album ‘Burnout Days,’ an achingly intimate and emotionally charged record born from exhaustion, reflection, and the will to keep going. From fever dream highs and escapist anthems to moments of raw reckoning and naked vulnerability, the Floridian five-piece peel back the layers of each song to reveal the stories, struggles, and sparks of connection that make this their most powerful work yet.

Stream: “Rodeo Clown” – flipturn

We love what we do. These songs are stories about the side effects.

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Burnout doesn’t always look like shutting down.

Sometimes it looks like pushing harder – chasing the next show, the next song, the next high, the next version of yourself until you don’t recognize the person in the mirror. That’s the pulse running through flipturn’s Burnout Days, a record that dances in the tension between exhaustion and exhilaration, recklessness and resolve. The beloved band’s sophomore album finds the Floridian five-piece at their most exposed and electrifying – a smoldering indie rock fever dream full of grit and gold, forged in the pressure cooker of life on the road and lit up with intention, intimacy, and sweat.

MDMA made me love you more
It’s all just a chemical feeling
So don’t take it so personal
Oh, my love’s still got meaning

And I’ve been waiting
For you to figure that out
My intoxication
Doesn’t mean it didn’t count

I’ve been feeling the weight of everything
Yeah, babe, I hold it down
Floating into the same old empty
I feel it now

– “Rodeo Clown,” flipturn

Released January 24^th via Dualtone Music Group, Burnout Days is the long-awaited follow-up to flipturn’s 2022 debut Shadowglow, and a bold step forward in both scope and spirit. Hailed by Atwood Magazine as a “soundtrack to our coming-of-age reckonings,” Shadowglow formally introduced flipturn – comprised of Dillon Basse (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Tristan Duncan (lead guitar), Madeline Jarman (bass), Mitch Fountain (synth), and Devon VonBalson (drums) – to the world through a radiant rollercoaster of emotional reflections, its songs “full of cinematic strength and youthful energy, self-doubt and uncertainty, brutal honesty, shaky confidence, unbridled optimism, and heartfelt hope.” For flipturn, who first formed in 2015 and had been steadily rising for seven years, their first full-length record acted both as an affirmation of all that they had built, and as a bridge between their past, present, and future – or, as lead guitarist Tristan Duncan described it, “that moment of time between the yearning of youth and the sobering weight of adulthood.” Shadowglow’s breakout single “Sad Disco” can still be heard on rock radio stations today, alongside lesser (but no less mighty) hits like “Space Cowboy,” Playground,” and “Whales.”

Where their first record chronicled the rise – the excitement of arrival, the rush of the chase – this one lives in the comedown.

It’s an album steeped in introspection and upheaval, created in the quiet after the noise, as the band confronted success, exhaustion, and what it means to keep moving forward. Written during a retreat to the mountains of North Carolina and recorded on the edge of the Texas desert, Burnout Days doesn’t just pick up where Shadowglow left off – it cracks that world open as flipturn go deeper, darker, and more daring than ever before.

That tension became the foundation of Burnout Days, both thematically and emotionally. “Having put out Shadowglow and toured it pretty hard the past couple of years, I think we all began to more understand the life we found ourselves in – and in turn, understood what it meant to be burnt out,” Tristan Duncan tells Atwood Magazine. “This record covers that sentiment and the life that continues on around it.”

By the time Shadowglow was released in 2022, flipturn had become bona fide road warriors in their mid-20s, bringing their high-energy shows to festivals like Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and Governor’s Ball, and touring with the likes of Two Door Cinema Club, Mt. Joy, and Rainbow Kitten Surprise. The album’s success sent them to revered bucket-list venues like Brooklyn Steel, the 9:30 Club, and Red Rocks, expanding their fanbase by the tens of thousands. But that momentum came at a cost.

“We grinded the hell out of Shadowglow, and the pace was nonstop,” frontman Dillon Basse recalls. “The album’s success allowed us to get in front of a lot more people and play a lot more shows, but we weren’t necessarily thinking about the mental repercussions of being gone so often.”

Those experiences – of presence and absence, of missing loved ones’ milestones, of running themselves ragged at home and abroad, formed the basis for a batch of songs that dig deep into what it means not just to be human, but to have, to hold, and to lose those special bonds – those sacred connections – we all easily take for granted.

As Basse correctly points out, none of the band’s subject matter is exclusive to the life and times of touring artists. “Everyone can feel like this; it’s not just musicians,” he says. “Burnouts can happen whenever you’re so passionate about something that you throw yourself into it one hundred percent. That can happen whenever you push yourself too hard, and this record is about being OK with it, and finding ways to cope with it. We love what we do. These songs are stories about the side effects.”

Those stories come to life in songs that flipturn built with incredible care. “We wanted to create an immersive world,” guitarist and synthesizer player Mitch Fountain explains. “We were really intentional with the sounds we wanted for each song, and we paid attention to every single detail.”

For Fountain and his bandmates, Burnout Days feels like a sonic leap forward. Working with producer Chad Copelin, the band obsessed over arrangements, tone, and texture – building out a palette that felt cinematic, lived-in, and emotionally charged. “We wanted to make something with a conscious attention to detail in every section of every song,” Fountain smiles, “and I think we really accomplished that with this record. Our producer Chad Copelin was also a massive help in achieving that. We exceeded our own expectations of how focused we were able to be, with each part of the album.”

That sense of craftsmanship mirrors flipturn’s own evolution. “Burnout Days captures where we are in our own artistic journey, and we have gained a lot of experience since Shadowglow,” Fountain adds. “I love Shadowglow, and that was a record that snapshotted our artistic abilities at that time. Burnout Days is just showing how far we’ve come as a band and as creators.”

In bassist Madeline Jarman’s words, Burnout Days is “cathartic, effervescent, kinetic” – three adjectives that capture not only the band’s explosive energy, but the emotional fluidity that runs through the entire record. There’s a weight to these songs, and a lightness too – a duality that speaks to the lived-in reality behind each lyric and arrangement.

“The song ‘Burnout Days’ felt like it wrapped up the album as a whole,” frontman Dillon Basse shares. “The album was written during a time when we all were feeling a little burnout, so a lot of the album’s songs tackle themes relating to that!”

Peggy’s got a good bass, a good bass
Doesn’t take long for the skies to change
She takes me to her nice place where my face feels warm
As the sun hits the window

Falling asleep in a lullaby, can’t be here
But you can’t say goodbye
But when I’m home, I can’t close my eyes
So into the night

Tripping through the timeline
Making the doves cry
Yeah, you say you’re doing just fine
Enjoying the joyride

From end to end, Burnout Days is a masterpiece in lyrical and musical nuance, emotional honesty, and immersive atmosphere.

Highlights abound on the journey from album opener “Juno” – a pulsing, autobiographical track about life in a touring van and the tempting allure of “toxic positivity” – to the album’s dramatic closing number, “Burnout Days.” The sun-kissed melodies and sweaty beats of lead single “Rodeo Clown” make it an instant favorite to this day. Featured on Atwood immediately upon its release last fall, the beachy reverie helps set the tone for the album through a story about “escaping reality and putting on a happy face” in light of hardships and setbacks.

“It’s a song about coping with stress through a vice… Contrary to ‘the man in the arena,’ the rodeo clown in the ring distracts and puts on a show for those around him,” Basse, who wrote the song in a particularly down period, previously shared. The resulting ‘escapist anthem’ is as blissful as it is brutal, and as bold as it is beautiful. That intense aching Basse described comes to the fore as a cathartic exhale: A blanket of soothing sonic heat and relaxed, tender, melodic wonder.

I’ve been riding, I’ve been rolling
I’ve thrown my reputation around
And I’m not a man with too many enemies
I’m just a rodeo clown

And you’ve been waiting
For me to figure that out
Acting on emotion
Getting off
Getting down

I’ve been feeling the weight of everything
Yeah, babe, I hold it down
Floating into the same old empty
I feel it now
I’ve been giving away my comedy
I’ve been playing the crowd
Floating into the same old empty
I feel it now

– “Rodeo Clown,” flipturn

“Sunlight,” the album’s third single, is another brightly burning standout – a reckoning with familial trauma and unchecked bad habits that ebbs and flows with dynamic passion, eventually rising to a fever pitch in the form of a grungy, gritty, guitar-fueled climax.

Other songs hold a special place for the band themselves. Drummer Devon VonBalson points to “Tides” as a personal high point – not just on the album, but across flipturn’s entire catalog. “It might be my favorite flipturn song ever,” he shares. “It takes me right back to when we were writing the album in this North Carolina mountain house surrounded by all these lush green trees. It’s easily my favorite drum tones we’ve ever captured too. We ran the kit through a tape machine twice which gave it the perfect amount of saturation and sizzle. Super special moment.”

Watching tides grow
Letting time go
Today, the river sets like glass
Taking in silence, seeking asylum
Chaos, now the common calm, tracks
And I relax

Trying out treason
For no good reason, really
Just couldn’t let the chance slip past
Giving up grievin’
Surrendering seasonally, it was silly
Just seein’ how the sun rakes the grass
A shade seems to pass

How difficult it is
For darkness to last
And nobody’s panicking
Nobody’s panicking
It’s coming, change is coming
It’s coming, change is coming fast

– “Tides,” flipturn

Vocalist Dillon Basse singles out the lyrical vulnerability of “Window,” a track that captures the struggle of emotional openness and fear of past patterns repeating. “Some of the lyrics I was most surprised to find were in the first stanza of ‘Window’ — ‘Soap suds slicken the mud making new sludge. I was spilling my guts, spilling my lungs, and that’s a problem in the long run,’” he reflects.

“This line in particular came from me talking about the fact I am an oversharer. I was starting a relationship with someone new at the time, so it felt like I had a clean slate, but I was still oversharing with them. In the past, I had been equally vulnerable with my partners and they had always seemed to use that against me later on in the relationship.”

So far, you’re too much fun
And taming my tongue gets lonesome
So sink your teeth into my gums
If you want some

If you want some
I could give you so much
I could tell you about the things I’ve done
Old love and new drugs
Who I am and who I was
And who I’m bound to become

– “Window,” flipturn

Throughout their new album, flipturn explore everything from quiet revelations to gut-punch confessions. “If It Is” plays like a whispered warning – a brutally honest portrait of codependency and emotional entanglement. The sweltering, urgent “Moon Rocks” drifts in a haze of late-night clarity, capturing the calm that comes from shared silence and deep breaths. “Swim Between Trees” offers a heartfelt ode to the kind of love that both grounds and lifts you.

The closing title track, “Burnout Days,” ends the record on a cathartic, hopeful high – embracing burnout not as a breakdown, but as a turning point. It doesn’t close the album with a whimper, but with a raw, radiant ache – a search for meaning at the edge of emotional depletion. It’s a spirited, upbeat eruption that embraces both pain and perseverance, cresting in a desperate, defiant cry: “I wanna feel my heart again.” That single line cuts through the haze like a flare in the dark – a plea for aliveness, for connection, for something real to hold onto. “And I’ll love you, baby, for the rest of your burnout days,” Basse repeats like a vow, his voice both steady and shaking. It’s a heartbreak song, a healing song, and a testament to everything flipturn have poured into this album: The love, the longing, the loss, and the will to keep going anyway.

At the end of the coming-of-age
Like something we forgot
Well, it was all up to you and me
And we just let it rot constantly

On some endless highway with my thoughts
Makin’ it up as we go
In front of everyone
I couldn’t understand what it’d become

Darling, what have I become?
Well, we’ve gone too far to be undone
Freaking out
Who am I to you, washed out?

I wanna feel my heart again
Oh, I can feel it, I can feel it

– “Burnout Days,” flipturn

Burnout Days is the kind of second record most bands dream of making.

It builds upon the foundation flipturn laid on Shadowglow with sharper songwriting, deeper emotional excavation, and a bold sonic identity that refuses to settle. These songs don’t just match the heart and urgency of their debut – they surpass it. What results is a cohesive, cathartic triumph: A record that meets burnout head-on and finds beauty in the ashes. With Burnout Days, flipturn prove that they’re not just growing; they’re soaring.

And yet, for all its polish and punch, Burnout Days is ultimately a deeply human record – one that honors the mess and the magic of being alive. That sense of shared experience pulses through every beat, every lyric, every breath.

As bassist Madeline Jarman reflects: “I think at least for myself, creating these songs and releasing them made me realize that everyone seems to be experiencing different types of burnout in their lives, and we’re all just trying to grind through life. I hope listeners can relate to that, and know they’re not alone in those complicated feelings. Making this record has made me feel very thankful for my bandmates, and that we get to experience this crazy life together.”

In the chaos of it all, flipturn have found their clarity – and Burnout Days is the sound of that light breaking through.

Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside flipturn’s Burnout Days with Atwood Magazine as Dillon Basse takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of the band’s sophomore album. Fans can catch flipturn live on their summer and fall headline tour, with stops across North America and Europe including Lollapalooza, Newport Folk Festival, and sold-out shows from Atlanta to London!

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:: stream/purchase Burnout Days here ::

:: connect with flipturn here ::

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Stream: ‘Burnout Days’ – flipturn

:: Inside Burnout Days ::

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Juno

“Juno” is a song that actually came about by accident. When we were on our writing trip last summer Mitch dropped his Juno (JU-06A) by accident but when it hit the ground it somehow created a brand new patch and a sound that everyone loved. We loved it so much that it instantly turned into the opening riff of the song.

Lyrically, we wanted to tell a story about what life can feel like traveling the country as a band in a transit van. Our van Pegasus, “Peggy” for short, really became the closest thing to home we had when touring. A lot of our family and friends for years would assume that the rockstar lifestyle was how they saw it in movies or pop culture but in reality it is a much different experience. It truly is an insane thing to do and you kind of have to be a little delusional to do it. Juno also is meant to highlight the toxic positivity that I think we’ve all experienced when we feel like we need to tell our friends and family “we’re living the dream” when we are still very much chasing the dream.

Rodeo Clown

“Rodeo Clown” is the first story we shared from our second LP. When we started working on this song last July, I remember thinking the chorus had this floating feel to it. In simple terms it’s a song about coping with stresses through a vice but more specifically, it’s a story about using MDMA, a drug that evokes a feeling of false confidence and warmth or “floating” in my experience, as a way to escaping a reality I didn’t want to be in at the time. Contrary to “the man in the arena”, the rodeo clown in the ring distracts and puts on a show for those around him.

The song portrays the use of drugs as a means of escapism, highlighting the ephemeral nature of euphoria and the weight of emotional burdens. The Rodeo Clown metaphor suggests playing a role to hide true feelings, emphasizing the dichotomy between outward appearances and internal struggles.

Inner Wave

This is a song to me that really just feels like coming up on a drug both lyrically and sonically. The funny thing about when artists/musicians change as people is that no matter how much they change, throughout their career they are forced to constantly come back to a certain image or sound that they once portrayed. I had been reading a lot of Alan Watts before this record because I felt as though I was having some identity issues and problems related to who I was as an artist/ human being now versus who I’ve been in my past. Reading Watts’ words about “the self” and security and what identity even is led me to want to write about my own personal experience with it all… that and some help from some magic mushrooms.

Sunlight

“Sunlight” might be the most personal and honest song I’ve written lyrically. I started writing words for it the day my mom had to be driven to rehab again by my little sister. I wanted to tell a story of acceptance of those closest to us for who they are because ultimately they are the people shaping us and changing us the most.

My mom took up growing bonsais when she got home from rehab as a hobby to help prevent her from drinking. She would also recite and preach to us the serenity prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” That’s really where the idea for the rest of the song came from. Like a bonsai tree’s branches needing to be cut in order for it to grow, human beings also need to be pruned in order to grow, even if it hurts like a mother f*er.

Moon Rocks

This is at its core a song about two friends smoking on a porch, thinking yet again they’ve “figured some shit out” the higher they get. It is also a story of venting and getting some things off one’s chest. I forget where I heard this but I once heard someone say “the reason people think smoking calms them down is because it forces them to take deep breaths.” Whether that’s true or not I wanted to write a song about late night talks with your friends and taking some deep breaths.

Right?

This is likely the most existential song on the album. All the songs on the album I feel came from experiences with burnout or coping, but this was one specifically that came from the question “I’m doing this shit and taking my part in the rat race for something… right?”

Window

With every pun intended, “Window” is a song about opening up. More specifically though, it’s a song that tries to beat the cliche of someone who’s been burned by opening up in the past. When we were writing this song I was in this strange in-between stage of getting to know my current partner after having left my past relationship. I make a living off of being vulnerable so I would never call myself a closed person, but because of my past relationship it was the first time I was a little hesitant to give myself up to someone. “Window” was just a small piece of growing past a new fear and truly being vulnerable again.

Swim Between Trees

Lyrically, just some words I wrote about the woman in my life that I’ve learned so much from. She keeps me grounded and yet makes me feel like I can be or do anything I want. She’s seen me in the moments I’m most confident and feeling like I can conquer the f*ing world and she’s seen that same person become a shell of themselves.

Tides

At the time of writing this record, most of us lived together in a house on the St. John’s River in Jacksonville. Every day the river looks a little different, and we love sitting out on the dock watching the tides change and wildlife that stops by (manatees, bald eagles, dolphins, gators, herons, just to name a few). The river works as a point of introspection and is a great place to think about life and things of our pasts.

A tape delay effect organically sounded like cicadas and fits perfectly with the setting for the song. A song written looking out at the world outside our house on the river in Jacksonville and seeing the flow of nature realizing the world isn’t going in any direction in particular. It’s just going.

Reason to Pretend

A song that really does the opposite of every other song lyrically on the record. It was the one song written out of pure angst rather than understanding. The line “You love me a healthy amount” is said in a frustrated manner because this is a song about wanting that obsessive over the top love with someone.

If It Is

At the time we wrote this one I had just started going to therapy for the first time. It was through therapy I learned a lot about myself including the fact that I was a very codependent person. This is a song that acts as a confession and simultaneously a warning from a codependent person to anyone that they might be involved in saying “if this is just what it’s always been”… RUN!

Burnout Days

We decided to name the album and also wrap it up with this song in particular because it was the most hopeful outlook on the side effects of burnout. The inspiration came when I met my current partner. I have always had a hard time letting myself enjoy life because I was constantly wanting more, never truly felt satisfied with where I was and who I was, and honestly sometimes just didn’t think I deserved to enjoy it at times. She slowed everything down and for the first time I wasn’t denying the feeling of burnout but embracing it as just another chapter in my life that I was going to grow from.

In broader terms though, dealing with burnout as a band made us realize and appreciate the people in our lives that loved us no matter what. Chasing this dream we’ve always had has led us to leave the people we care about constantly. With no guarantee of actually achieving it, they still support us because they love us and they know how much we love what we do.

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:: stream/purchase Burnout Days here ::

:: connect with flipturn here ::

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flipturn tour dates

tickets and more information here!

July 17 – The Tabernacle – Atlanta, GA
July 18 – Asheville Yards – Asheville, NC
July 19 – Greenfield Lake Amphitheater – Wilmington, NC
July 22 – The NorVa – Norfolk, VA
July 24 – State Theatre – Portland, ME
July 25 – Stone Pony Summer Stage – Asbury Park, NJ
July 26 – Newport Folk Festival – Newport, RI
July 29 – Tree House Summer Stage – Deerfield, MA
July 30 – The Agora – Cleveland, OH
July 31 – The Intersection – Grand Rapids, MI
August 1 – Lollapalooza – Chicago, IL
August 4 – The Admiral – Omaha, NE
August 6 – The Wilma – Missoula, MT
August 7 – Treefort Music Hall – Boise, ID
August 9 – Outside Lands Music Festival – San Francisco, CA
August 11 – Commodore Ballroom – Vancouver, BC
August 14 – Channel 24 – Sacramento, CA
August 15 – Fremont Theater – San Luis Obispo, CA
August 16 – Fox Theater Pomona – Pomona, CA
August 17 – Rialto Theatre – Tuscon, AZ
August 19 – Cain’s Ballroom – Tulsa, OK
August 20 – JJ’s Live – Fayetteville, AR
August 22 – Iroquois Amphitheater – Louisville, KY
August 23 – The Sylvee – Madison, WI
August 24 – Rose Park – Columbia, MO
November 3 – Gretchen – Berlin, Germany
November 4 – LUXOR – Cologne, Germany
November 5 – La Maroquinerie – Paris, France
November 7 – Manchester Academy 2 – Manchester, UK
November 10 – The Belfast Empire Music Hall – Belfast, UK
November 11 – Button Factory – Dublin, Ireland
November 13 – The Fleece – Bristol, England
November 14 – O2 Forum Kentish Town – London, England

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 © Amanda Laferriere

Burnout Days

an album by flipturn