★★★★

Hardcore’s biggest crossover success story continues with an ambitious LP which validates their position at the front of the pack.

You wouldn’t necessarily think it given the audacious ferocity of the music, but a large subset of hardcore scene is all about clean-living and positivity. It seems antithetical given the live performances of these bands are infamously apocalyptic; stage diving, hardcore dancing and crowd-killing are commonplace. Back when Turnstile burst onto the Baltimore hardcore scene in 2011 with their rough around the edges debut EP Pressure To Succeed, they were no different. They quickly gained a reputation across the US as one of the hardest and fastest young hardcore bands, which they backed with a catalogue of ruthless material on 2013’s Step 2 Rhythm and 2016’s Nonstop Feeling, and a live show that was relentlessly intense.

It is probably the abrasive venom of the hardcore experience which keeps it relatively isolated. If you do take the leap, you’ll be welcomed into the brotherhood with open arms; this is a devoted sub-culture who take care of their own. But the inaccessibility of the live experience gives it little crossover appeal; a deliberate detail which keeps the performances intimate. This connection between audience and artist is crucial. The shows are well-known for having no barrier, allowing gleeful fans to leap up on stage and immediately frontflip straight back into the pit. It’s not for everyone, understandably. So when Turnstile took on the ambitious challenge to widen hardcore’s appeal, some fans felt conflicted at their perceived abandonment of their own revered sound in favour of something more commercially accessible to the average joe. But like it or not, 2021’s GLOW ON was an unprecedented success for a hardcore rooted band.

What made it such a standout record was its boundless fluidity and refusal to be held by the shackles which often restrict hardcore to a single gnarly blueprint. Instead, the Baltimore quintet decided to go as far as possible in the other direction, incorporating melodic rock, shoegaze, R&B and indie rock. Not to mention tracks which were heavily indebted to samba and psychedelia; eclectic would be the word for this record. But for an LP so diverse in sound and influence, it worked for one crucial reason; the music was overflowing with a relentlessly positive energy. As the title alludes to, Turnstile were feeling good, and they wanted you to as well. The critical and commercial success of the album was enough to propel the group onto a different plane. Suddenly people whose only prior experience of hardcore was from that one song in the soundtrack of a mid-noughties video game were screaming the lyrics to BLACKOUT in a festival mosh pit.

So, the first crossover experiment worked. And in doing so, they may have left some of their early followers behind; after all, you can’t win over the most fervently purist hardcore fans. But by this point the Turnstile formula was clear; keep pushing the boundaries, keep the vibes positive. If this was indeed the case, then NEVER ENOUGH delivers on its promises. Four years in the making, there was an understandably weighty expectation on this album. But instead of buckling under the pressure, Brendan Yates and co rise to the challenge with a meticulous precision which means this album, cinematic in its ambition, rarely overreaches.

And yeah, there is a lot going on here. It’s everything we heard in GLOW ON but more. SEEIN’ STARS, singled out for praise by no less than musical royalty Elton John, and I CARE feature jangling guitar leads which sound so derivative of The Police that it’s enough to smile wryly. On SUNSHOWER, the initial explosion of familiar hardcore sound is halted after 90 seconds and fades into an ambient outro featuring a flute solo by Shabaka Hutchings formerly of The Comet Is Coming. But purists fear not, there’s still space for the more familiar frenzy of hardcore noise on BIRDS and DULL. And then there’s the standout titular track, which has become a staple opening of the new electric live show.

There has long been an idea in hardcore that to ‘get it, you have to experience in live’; Yates has perpetuated this sentiment (possibly as a ploy to promote ticket sales). But the endlessly soaring popularity of Turnstile over the preceding half-decade can only be attributed to one thing; for the first time, you don’t have to see it live to get it. They’ve managed to capture the best elements of the genre and repackage them into something which is accessible, wholly positive, but retains the core facets which give the genre its inimitable edge. Whilst NEVER ENOUGH does have some forgettable tracks, it succeeds on the whole thanks to the group’s fearless experimentation and unwavering commitment to pushing hardcore further than it’s ever been before. But with all that said, you should definitely go see them live. Then you will definitely ‘get it’.