Getting into music as a kid, my journey was flanked by a chorus of older dudes chanting “they don’t make it like they used to.” I brushed it aside as grumpy old man complaining, because of course there’s still great music being made. But in the last few years, I’ve started to see more and more of my own peers joining that old refrain, assigning it to ’00s emo and pop punk instead of classic rock.
But my reaction remains the same. There’s tons of great music being released now, much of it checking off the same boxes of the music they loved as adolescents.
Take for instance Floorbird. They’re a newer act, but if you were to tell someone that they played Warped Tour in 2003, they’d likely believe you. Fall Apart Anywhere was released in 2020, but it pulls off the same sort of hooky blend of emo and pop punk as Dashboard Confessional, The Ataris, and Jimmy Eat World.
From the opening punch of “I’m Not Nervous” to the tender closing of “I Brought You a Blanket,” every moment here smacks of early 2000s nostalgia without sounding derivative. Vocalist Eric Reavey delivers line after line of catchy melodies designed for screaming along while driving down the highway with your windows down. It helps that his range is quite similar to Chris Carrabba, whose work in Dashboard Confessional and Further Seems Forever has long established him as the king of throat-shredding singalongs.
His popcraft is expertly underpinned by the rest of the band. Hyperactive punk drums and driving bass lines rooting electric guitars as they shift from jangling open chords, chunky palm mutes, and spindly leads. “Navy Blue” in particular is a great example of their fluency as arrangers.
The one notable break in the spell of nostalgia is the ballad “Pale Blue Dot,” in which Reavey’s acoustic and tender vocal performance is buoyed by atmospheric electric guitars and a vocoder choir. But the song loses nothing by failing to pass as a track from 2003. On the vinyl version, the track list is augmented by two acoustic versions, of “700 Meters” and “Thawing Out,” both of which show just how faithfully Reavey’s songwriting emulates the scene of the early oughts.
Fall Apart Anywhere is hardly just a nostalgia fest though. While it certainly makes the most of the expectations built by their “recommended if you like” section, it never feels like a retread of glory days gone by. Rather, Floorbird are formidable contenders in the ongoing emo revival. And if you find yourself longing for the emo punk of yore, give this a listen. Yes, that means you, Kyle.