In April, Turnstile’s name unexpectedly appeared in vast letters on the backdrop of Charli xcx’s set at the Coachella festival. In the coming months, she suggested, “Turnstile summer” would replace her ubiquitous “Brat summer”. Hedging her bets slightly, she also suggested that 2025 would be the summer of everyone from Addison Rae and PinkPantheress to Kali Uchis to Pulp. Nevertheless, Turnstile’s name stood out: the quintet are, at root, a hardcore punk band, a product of the fertile Baltimore scene that spawned Trapped Under Ice, Ruiner and Stout. For the most part, hardcore exists in its own world of rigid rules and codes, some distance from the mainstream: extant hardcore punk bands seldom get shouted out by huge pop stars.
Then again, hardcore punk bands don’t tend to receive Grammy nominations or make the US Top 30, as Turnstile have done. Meanwhile, Charli xcx’s endorsement is just another celebrity nod in the band’s direction after backing from Metallica’s James Hetfield, Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, R&B star Miguel and Demi Lovato, who described them as her favourite band. Their tipping point came with the release of 2021’s Glow On, on which frontman Brendan Yates moved his shouty vocal style towards singing, and the band expanded their musical remit in unexpected directions. They may be the only act in history to sound like a warp-speed hardcore band in the time-honoured tradition of Minor Threat or the Circle Jerks, and – entirely without irony or satirical intent – like the kind of glossy new-wave 80s pop to which hardcore was once ideologically opposed, on adjacent tracks of the same album.
Four years on, Glow On’s stylistic shifts feel like a tentative dry run for Never Enough. Yates has abandoned the raw-throated aspect of his vocals entirely: the album’s lyrics seem to be dealing with relationship trauma in characteristic emo style (“lost my only friend”, “it’s unfair” etc), but something about his voice and melodies now recall Police-era Sting; there’s an occasional hint of AutoTune in the mix, too. Some of the experiments Turnstile conducted on Glow On are repeated – the vaguely Smiths-y jangle of that album’s Underwater Boi gets another airing on I Care, this time around decorated with what sounds like a Syndrum; guest Dev Hynes, better known as alt-pop auteur Blood Orange, is engaged once more on Seein’ Stars, this time part of an impressive supporting cast that includes Paramore’s Hayley Williams, Wire star Maestro Harrell and singer-songwriter Faye Webster.
But they’re joined by deeper forays into unexpected territory. Sunshower starts at 100mph, clatters to a halt, then reboots as a wall of proggy synthesiser and a lengthy flute solo, courtesy of Shabaka Hutchings. Dreaming has a curious, vaguely Latin American rhythmic slant, and horns courtesy members of jazzy funk band BadBadNotGood. Dull, meanwhile, melds beefy nu-metal inspired choruses to glitchy electronic verses, the latter presumably the work of “additional producer” and xcx affiliate AG Cook. Elsewhere, there is neon-hued pop punk bathed in a dreamy swirl of echo (Time Is Happening), riffs borrowed from Black Sabbath (Sweet Leaf, to be specific, on Slowdive), distinctly U2-esque guitar solos and divebombing dubstep bass (Never Enough).
It’s a lot of disparate sounds to marshal into a coherent whole, and there’s something hugely impressive about how well Never Enough does it. No matter which direction Turnstile strike out in, it surprises rather than jars, the transitions smoothed out by an unfailing hooky melodicism that applies as much to distorted riffs as it does to pop-facing vocal lines. The synth-forward pop rock of Light Design and the trad hardcore of Sole might be at different ends of the stylistic spectrum, but they’re united by killer tunes. If the album has a problem, it’s not a lack of ideas or songwriting ability, but the occasional sense that Turnstile have ventured so far from their starting point that they’re in danger of losing their USP, or at least their ability to stamp their identity on the results. As songs, there’s nothing wrong with Seein’ Stars, the closing ballad Magic Man or the brief, electric piano-backed Ceiling, but they could be songs by any act within the vast, homogeneous mass of 21st-century music that exists in the grey area between rock and pop.
In isolation, moments such as those can give you pause, but as part of the kaleidoscopic whole of Never Enough, they’re easy to overlook. There’s so much else happening, a profusion of ideas so deftly handled that it never feels sprawling or indulgent. If Turnstile’s grounding in hardcore has taught them anything, it’s the value of being concise. However unexpected their rise into the mainstream, it isn’t about to stop.
This week Alexis listened to
Demise of Love – Strange Little Consequence
Daniel Avery, Phantasy Sound labelmate Ghost Culture and Working Men’s Club combine to make moody, delightful maximalist electronic pop.
