In Review: Flyte - This Is Really Going To Hurt

Be warned: anyone who has had a relationship end, even semi-recently, Flyte’s second full-length This Is Really Going To Hurt will leave you with a fresh punch in the gut. Written in the aftermath of lead singer, Will Taylor’s eight-year relationship ending, it is well and truly a break-up record. But rather than the loud guitars and screaming catharsis of others in the genre, Flyte’s record is surprisingly soft. 

With gentle guitar and misty vocals, Flyte’s atmospheric sound drapes the record in introspection. In doing so, they have produced a record with all the impassioned turmoil of the end of something, lulling you in with the dreamy, Bon Iver-like indie-folk they do so well, all soothingly wrapped as a space where you can wallow in your sadness. 

Delicately balancing between being too sad to listen to or exactly what is needed to help you through, opening track cautions from the start that "you’ve survived worse, but this is really going to hurt’". From there, each track walks you through the journey of a heart-break. It is there in the position of the friend to listen to your rants, as well as being there as the outlet you need to cry.

‘Everyone’s A Winner’ will rip into you: it is a stand-out moment and a beautifully broken piece of songwriting. But the album is neither too pretentious by being filled with such lyrical tracks. Nor does it come across as too bitter. However, the jagged ‘Losing You’, is at its core the drunk, messy voicemail sent at 1am pleading: “just tell me you want me, I don’t care if it’s true”. Relatable to anyone who has felt a need to get their emotions out in whatever stupid way: “you’ve stripped me of everything and I hate you, I really do, still I don’t think I’ll get used to losing you”.

What Flyte have done is take the complex turbulence of post-break-up life, feelings that people often struggle to come to terms with, and translate them into their music. And that is what great records do for listeners. Beautiful melodies, poignant lyrics, and signature harmonies tie together in an emotional record that is everything and more any Flyte fan could hope for from the tricky second album.

To hear more from Flyte, click here.