Turnstile - Never Enough - review
Turnstile - Never Enough - review
Tracklist
01. Never Enough02. Sole
03. I Care
04. Dreaming
05. Light Design
06. Dull
07. Sunshower
08. Look Out For Me
09. Ceiling
10. Seein' Stars
11. Birds
12. Slowdive
13. Time Is Happening
14. Magic Man
A review by
RaduP June 18, 2025
There is something about putting "punk" and "pop" together that still feels wrong on a fundamental level. Without going too much into the history of pop punk, it seems like the trajectory is usually always from the more heavy punk leaning side towards the more accessible pop leaning side. And I don't mean just "pop" as its own specific genre, because in this same trajectory it can be a stand in for anything that's on the softer side relative to more hardcore punk infused origins, so anything from alternative rock to indie rock to EDM to whatever. I'm not exactly sure why this is the emerging pattern, one that can be noticed in a bunch of different bands from the likes of Bring Me The Horizon to The Armed recently, or as far back as Hüsker Dü. This isn't to say that this genre transition is an indication of quality increasing or decreasing, even if it sometimes coincides with one, but merely that even if it's not something that hasn't been done before, it's still something that feels shocking in a way.
Even at their punkiest, Turnstile have never been the heaviest of bands, and as far back as their EPs you could hear hints of melody that went beyond the meat and potatoes of beatdown hardcore. Nonstop Feeling and Time & Space took those hints and made a more seamless blend of that already melodic leaning hardcore punk with some hookier alternative rock, though the band still felt like first and foremost a hardcore punk band. The band made the biggest jump with Glow On, where it feels like the scales were strongly tipped towards the alternative side, with it specifically getting a more pop appeal, but also one with a shoegaze coating on it, and one where electronica being used in interlude moments wasn't out of place. This push towards a pop appeal worked really well commercially for Turnstile, with Grammy nominations and billboard chartings and all that, so it makes sense for Never Enough to continue in that direction, but the album does more than that.
Let's not mince words here, I hated my first listen of this album. I did warm up to a lot of its songs since, especially after revisiting their older albums and drawing more parallels in how their melodic sense has taken roots, but I've also been able to pinpoint the two things that really don't work for me with Never Enough but worked with Glow On despite how similar both albums are. Yes, it's clear that Turnstile have a knack for catchy riffs and pop melodies, and regardless of my enjoyment of them, I did get a lot of melodies form this album to follow me after listening to it. Them being so good at it is only making this album even more of a frustrating affair.
First off, even though I don't exact have much of an issue with the album leaning so heavily towards pop, I don't think Brendan Yates is a particularly good pop vocalist. There are plenty of punk or even hardcore leaning moments on the album, and I don't agree with the people who say that they should drop all pretenses of still being a punk band and just go full pop, not only because the riffing in those moments works well in contrast with the non-punk moments, but also because Yates punk shouting is better than his singing. But even more than that, it's all the vocal processing that really rubs me the wrong way. I know a lot of it is trying to work in tandem with the dream pop coating, but instead of sounding ethereal, in its worst offending moments it reminds me too much of something like Travis Scott, and he already ruined WrestleMania 41 so I don't need him ruining pop hardcore too.
The other thing is that Never Enough was accompanied by a film / visual album, and I can only guess that the music videos for the album's singles are taken from that film. Right now it doesn't seem like the film in full is available anywhere, but from what I've seen the color grading in it is fantastic and I wish more movies felt that colorful, and it seems like the way Never Enough is structured operates better in tandem with that film, with the album being a full ten minutes longer than Glow On, and it really feels like too much of it is interludes. Yes, it's nice to hear how the band is trying its hands at more ambient electronica in these moments, building more upon what they did on Share A View, but the album's flow kinda suffers, and the album's opener especially feels like it's trying to shove both of these issues in the listener's face.
Now that we got the glaring issues out of the way, now that I've warmed up to it, there are things about Never Enough that I really appreciate. It's clear that the band tried to push the envelope instead of just repeating Glow On, and even if the way they did that did lead to things I really dislike about it, it also lead to how great the synth accentuates the punk in the latter half of "Sole", the honest-to-God new wave of "I Care", that horn section in "Dreaming", "Look Out For Me" having the best chorus of the album and also the best EDM interlude, "Seein' Stars" being a pretty perfect pop song along with a quite incredible solo, "Birds" being the heaviest song on the record. Too bad not all of the record is like that and I have to take the thing as a whole.
I'm quite curious to see what the future holds for Turnstile and whether they can capitalize on what really worked for them on both Glow On and Never Enough or whether the pitfalls of this album will only get worse. I feel like a lot of how I'll see this album retrospectively will come down to how they follow it up. Right now I don't see myself revisiting it in full, but with a lot of songs that I'd gladly go back to.
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To me this album sounds like some leftover material from Glow on, or the Reload to their Load. Not great overall yet with some solid moments (as the reviewer pointed out). Some better cover art would had been nice also
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It definitely feels like Glow On Part Deus, but the sound they got now is definitely better. Id be just fine with them dropping the hardcore stuff completely. Also +1 to your Travis Scott line. Fuck him for ruining Cody Rhodes’ moment.
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