Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH
Turnstile is a beloved band in the Chris’s Picks household. Not only have I been a huge fan and supporter since being introduced to them via their Time & Space record, they are also the favorite rock band of my daughter. She was all of 3 when I first played her GLOW ON, and the way she lost her mind to “MYSTERY” and “BLACK OUT” absolutely created core memories for both of us. Every time we got in the car for months, she asked for “Daddy’s music” which meant cranking up Turnstile until my watch barked at me for being in a loud environment. As time wore on and the legend of Turnstile grew, we were blessed with a Turnstile t-shirt for my daughter, now eternally obsessed with the band. And finally, we have a new album from the group: NEVER ENOUGH.
It would be lazy to state that NEVER ENOUGH is simply GLOW ON 2.0. This thing is its own monster, and NEVER ENOUGH will absolutely stand on its own in the Turnstile catalog as their best album to date. But yes, it stands on the shoulders of giants to exist— both in that Turnstile manages to sound like Turnstile even when they aren’t playing straight hardcore, and the fact that NEVER ENOUGH fulfills the promise of Refused’s The Shape of Punk to Come. Although Refused was directly dealing with capitalism, Turnstile bargains with existence.
The most obvious side-by-side track comparison is “New Noise” and “LOOK OUT FOR ME,” with both songs incorporating heavy riffage with spurts of their respective times’ electronic music. Refused peppered “New Noise” with distinctly European techno whereas Turnstile’s “LOOK OUT FOR ME” morphs into an IDM house party, but only after appropriately dropping a nod to their Baltimore hometown with a sample from the all-time great TV show The Wire. But it’s not as simple as “this one kinda sounds like that one.” Refused opened their opus with a screed against capitalism, but Turnstile instead declare their mission statement as there will never be enough Turnstile sounding like Turnstile because that is an impossible ask. Turnstile exist because of hardcore punk, but Turnstile will not simply play hardcore punk, even if they absolutely crush it when they do (on this album, see “BIRDS” as an example of them in peak form.) Check out their hometown show in front of 10,000 on lookers or take a spin on YouTube of any Turnstile performance, and you’ll find choreographed chaos as the band dodges stage divers. The setlist for their live debut of NEVER ENOUGH included songs from their first two albums, but it also highlighted their newest album’s single “SEEIN’ STARS” which doesn’t sound like hardcore at all despite sounding exactly like Turnstile. While The Shape of Punk to Come dabbled in other genres, NEVER ENOUGH fully commits on every track, whether it’s pop punk or hardcore or Latin jazz or new age flute.
Somehow, the band makes it all make sense no matter what BPM they decide to explore. Opening title track “NEVER ENOUGH” is exactly what it should be, a song that both acknowledges their explosion into the mainstream while leaning into the exploration that makes the album so great and easy to listen to on repeat. Sure, it’s got riffs and hooks, it wouldn’t be Turnstile without them, but it’s also got space and synths and texture, the quiet parts that make the loud parts that much louder. It’s a successful approach, one the band revisits regularly on NEVER ENOUGH but never to the point of being repetitive or trite.
Is Turnstile the first band to make hardcore punk transcendent beyond the genre? Absolutely not, and they likely won’t be the last either. But right now, in this timeline, they are the current best at what they do, and that’s sounding exactly like Turnstile no matter what they do. This is a great record with great, subtle guest spots, and it’s going to be blasting loud from my daughter’s record player and my car stereo for years to come.
https://open.spotify.com/track/6ONyZXRIEiZWWnAA1F5YvH?si=4--RVcATTAmMOY8B1jbR3w
