Album Review: Turnstile - "Never Enough"

Never Enough serves as a solid successor to Glow On and Turnstile continue to push the envelope in genre defying ways, even though it could've (and should've) definitely been pushed more.

Roadrunner - 2025

Baltimore alums Turnstile will be forever known as the first (and currently only) hardcore band to break into the mainstream. And that's completely okay! Thanks to 2021's Glow On, which was a very generously critical and commercial success (and an excellent album to boot), Turnstile became a band to watch in mainstream music, rather than from the underground. Sure, they're on major label Roadrunner Records now, they've been nominated for Grammys, and they've got the coveted Taco Bell commercial plug, but that doesn't take away any creditability from Turnstile or hardcore as a genre. This seems like a given to me but thanks to the internet these days, there are countless, endless heated debates online about whether or not Turnstile are considered a hardcore band anymore. And to answer this very annoying and tiresome question... yes, they are still very much a hardcore band, whether the synthesizers, clean production, or drum machines make you sick to your stomach or make you jump for joy.

Turnstile are a band to be celebrated within the genre, regardless of what you actually think about the group's music. With the massive hype and praise of Glow On, it's become a seemingly impossible task to follow it up or to even wonder where they can go from here. Now we've finally(?) found our answer with the group's new album, Never Enough. The band's new, fourth studio album features a new lineup change, ditching the founding member Brady Ebert and adding guitarist Meg Mills. Never Enough is a fitting title, in which the album is presented to its audience as if the punchy, creatively infused Glow On simply wasn't enough to quench their thirst. If Glow On simply introduced to us its sonic offerings of punk, Never Enough doubles down and gives us even more in an even more ambitious and cinematic way. Whether this second helping is a bad thing or not is up to you and its divisive response, although mostly warm, is pretty expected because of it. I would've liked Never Enough to be a little more daring in its sound but it's all the more charming, fun, and appealing. It serves as a solid successor to Glow On and continues to push the envelope in genre defying ways, even though it could've (and should've) definitely been pushed more.

There are welcome collaborations from the likes of Paramore's Hayley Williams and Dev Blood Orange's Hynes to even The Comet Is Coming's Shabaka Hutchings on flute. There's the similarly welcoming, warm glossy sheen in the production similar to that of Glow On. It's pretty immediate to hear on the album's opening title track. Its shimmering synths set a mood that shifts into the band's explosive guitars, drums and signature shouts from Brendan Yates. It's very reminiscent of the prior banger "Mystery" and is a safe and reassuring banger, but a banger nonetheless. There are the expected fast paced freakouts like "Sole," "Sunshower" (minus its pretty, new agey finish) and the ones that have a heavier weight to them, like "Slowdive" and the majority of "Magic Man" (before it drifts off into an ambient passage). There's slick alternative rock and synth pop on the dreamy and pillowy "I Care" and some surprising horn sections that make "Dreaming" a delight. I was cautious when I first heard "Seein' Stars," due to its complete unashamed direction towards being a straightforward synth pop song. It seemed like a huge detour for the group but in the context of the album, it sounds pretty slick. "Light Design" has some pretty electronics flowing into its moody, vibey tune. "Look Out for Me" is the band's most ambitious song on the album. At over six minutes in length, they swing for the fences at creating an epic that starts as a straightforward hardcore track, morphing into a clubby, dancey synth odyssey. It works shockingly well and is one of the sharper and more creative highlights on the album.

Pun detractors be damned, Turnstile continue to turn heads. Never Enough is a sharp album that pushes the band's genre defying sounds sounds from Glow On even further. Like I wrote earlier, these sounds could and should be pushed a lot more, but I'll give Turnstile credit where credit's due. And sure, if I'm still complaining, the forty-five minute runtime could've been cut a little bit. The album is fun, vibrant, and shimmering with pretty cool vibes and sounds across the board. It's really hard not to like. Whether or not you would classify this as a "hardcore" album depends on just how pretentious you actually are. I'll admit, I'm quite pretentious but I wouldn't go that far. Genres aside, you won't find many albums like Never Enough or groups like Turnstile out there in the ether in the year 2025. You got to take what you can get and Never Enough isn't a bad choice in the slightest.

My Rating: 7 / 10

Favorite Songs: "Never Enough," "Dreaming," "Look Out for Me," "Sunshower," "I Care," "Seein' Stars"