Turnstile

Baltimore's Turnstile, boasting the twin guitars of Sean Cullen and Brady Ebert, debuted with the EPs Pressure to Succeed (2011) and Step 2 Rhythm (2013) as amateurish pupils of Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Limp Bizkit. The album Nonstop Feeling (2015) insists on that fusion of funk-punk and thrash metal (Gravity) but also features poppy refrains (Can't Deny it) and lots of generic hardcore imitations. Thankfully, there is a visceral peak of drama in Out of Rage. After the four-song EP Move Thru Me (2016), that experimented with other instruments (an organ) and voices (a female singer), their second album Time & Space (2018), that felt like a nostalgic tribute to the rabid hardcore bands of the 1980s like Bad Brains (Real Thing, Can't Get Away, High Pressure).

After and EP of remixes, Share A View (2020) and the EP Turnstile Love Connection (2021), containing the single Mystery, the catchy and vibrant hard-rock of Holiday and the pummeling hardcore of T.L.C. (Turnstile Love Connection), came the third album, Glow On (2021), produced with a sleek mainstream sound, that de-facto reinvented their career with the catchy and bombastic dance-pop of New Heart Design, echoes of synth-pop of the 1980s in Underwater Boi, the punk-pop singalong Lonely Dezires, the melodic hard-rock of Blackout and Fly Again (children of Holiday), and even the ethereal soul ballad Alien Love Call. Three of the four best songs are the songs of the preceding EP. The fourth one, New Heart Design, is not exactly groundbreaking. Overall, a rather dull experience when it's not mere dejavu.

Turnstile continues the progression (and downfall) toward an electronic and polished sound on Never Enough (2025). The glossy production benefits the songs with dance beat like Seein' Stars and I Care , which sound like 1980s dance-pop. The surreal and ambient Never Enough is a waste of time. The pathetic cliches of hardcore that surface in songs like Birds are an insult to the genre.