A legit contender for album of the year, Turnstile’s fourth album Never Enough builds on the promise of their well-received 2021 effort Glow On with killer hooks, a variety of musical influences and a confident swagger that the Baltimore quintet has earned by now.
Nominally a hardcore punk/rock band, Turnstile has transcended the limitations of that genre, using that sound as a basis for smart, hooky alt-rock songs like “Sole” and “Dreaming.” The harder, faster tracks like these serve as palate cleansers between the slower synth-driven tracks like “Light Design” and “I Care,” showing a band not afraid to branch out wherever the muse takes them.
You can hear a number of influences here, but Turnstile’s sound and approach goes beyond mimicry and into something fully modern and realized. As if winking at their past and future at the same time, “Sunshower” is a classic two-minute hardcore track that then dissolves into a two-minute synth solo; the two don’t make sense together, but in the context of the whole album it works. You need the cool-down period after the workout.
The prime example of what Turnstile is doing here is in the seven-minute “Look Out For Me,” which deftly blends punk energy, drum-driven verses, a slower middle section and then the EDM-inspired trip-hop closing beats. It then segues into a brief four-note intro (“Ceiling”) and then the album’s phenomenal hit single “Seein’ Stars.” Sharp listeners of a certain age will hear a callback to the Police’s Zenyatta Mondatta album in the repetitive four notes and the bassline; Brendan Yates also sounds a tad like Sting at times, mixed with 311’s Nick Hexum. It’s a driving pop-rocker that is so catchy you want to hear it again right away; if there’s any criticism, it’s that the “I fold” section that marries the chorus to the guitar solo is underdeveloped lyrically. But what a guitar solo! And Hayley Williams from Paramore pops up for background vocals.
“Birds” is another hardcore thumper; “Slowdive” is much better, calling back to Glow On but infused with the band’s newfound confidence; the guitar crunch, chord progressions and vocal tics are enticing and could well make you a new fan, if “Seein’ Stars” didn’t do it already. It would have been a perfect way to close the album, but the forgettable “Magic Man” gets that honor instead, with nary a guitar in sight.
The album isn’t perfect, of course, since the lack of cohesion lends to some pointless moments. “Sunshower” isn’t the only song where a dull, overlong ambient or electronic passage stops the momentum dead; once was fine as a cool-down, but three or four times is a bit much. Some editing would have turned this into a beast.
But still, nobody knew what Turnstile’s fourth album was going to be, and certainly purists will whine that they have abandoned their original sound (as purists often do). That’s not entirely true. They have, however, grown and expanded on their sound, not only showing how hardcore can co-exist with other genres on the same album but that all the influences available to us in 2025 are ripe for using to chart bold new territory. It’s not a killer album, but it’s very good.