Good Flying Birds

While there’s certainly been no drought of jangle pop over the past decade, Good Flying Birds throw a good dose of punk fray and frazzle into the mix that feels like it’s been lacking. Keen eyes and ears will recognize Talulah’s Tape from its digital release by the band and Rotten Apple early in the year, but with the help of Carpark and Smoking Room, the record gains physical releases for the Fall. The album is a collection of home recordings from 2020-2024, a dinged and dented vision of indie pop that’s not afraid to let some debris onto the spools. The band stitches together the disparate sessions into a patchwork quilt of squelched strums, candy-gunked hooks, and static-saturated interludes. The record revels in the free range openness of the pre-major label scoop of the nineties and, in equal measure, the tape renaissance of the aughts. It’s certainly a record that feels reverent to the indie rosters of the past, but more importantly to the ethos of doing what feels the most fun of the most functional.

The band slips on all the most scuzz-soaked signifiers; Guided By Voices attention spans and stepped on aesthetics, landline dynamics that feel like The Vaselines recording for the Elephant 6, and dusty charms that evoke digs through the deep ends of the K Recs toy chest. The band trips over jiffy-pop drum tracks, play like their instruments are about to be repossessed if they don’t outrun the riffs, and tie it all together with a media-marinated array of vocal snippets and samples. It’s an ADHD Zen Arcade, a Forever Again for the YouTube insomniacs. That this is the band left to their unvarnished devices speaks well for what’s to come, but even without an eye on the future, Talulah’s Tape is a treasure trove of jangle at its skinned-knees best.

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