When it comes to music, I am an environmentalist. I believe where you listen can be as important as what you are listening to. The right song requires the right weather, and vice versa, no matter the time of year. Though the summer, clearly, is the most conducive season of all for listening. Pop bops, low-rider hip-hop anthems, pontoon country bangers — they all slot easily into the potential “Song Of The Summer” lane. (Keep your agoraphobic folk-rock bummers for the winter.)
Personally, I have always been a sucker for a chunky, melodic summertime hard rock jam, going back to my early grade-school exposure to Van Halen’s “Panama” on MTV. The kind of headbanger that makes you feel happy rather than evil. (Or, to paraphrase Def Leppard, sticky sweet from your head to your feet.) Which is why I must salute Turnstile — the Baltimore punk band whose latest album Never Enough drops Friday — for understanding the assignment. Never Enough is one of the best rock records of 2025’s first half, and an expertly executed follow-up to their acclaimed 2021 breakthrough, Glow On. But it would probably sound a little less awesome if it came out on, say, February 21. Thankfully, Turnstile knows who they are and what service they provide. They make music for the start of summer, a time when cookouts and pool parties demand fat, overheated guitar riffs and full-throated choruses. And Never Enough should sound pretty much perfect in that context.
I fell in love with Turnstile back in 2018, upon the release of their second record, Time & Space. Their mix of punk, metal, and ’90s alternative rock reminded me of the “stoned in the backseat” albums of my youth, the feel-good music made by shirtless guys who play groove-heavy riffs while radiating an amiable “it’s all good” attitude. Time & Space felt like an album that I should be hearing on compact disc in a friend’s crappy Saturn S-Series, not on my computer. (Among Turnstile’s accomplishments is being one of the great modern “CD” bands.)
Time & Space presented Turnstile as an uncommonly ingratiating band. They did not seem at all dark or angry, no matter how hard their songs raged. But they weren’t really a party band, either. Turnstile was just a good hang. Their music was heavy but their mood was light. It sounded like how friendship feels. And that carried over to Glow On, which refined the big-eared eclecticism of Time & Space — which featured a cameo by Diplo and fearless excursions into R&B, funk, and psychedelia — into a seamless whole. They could now collaborate with Blood Orange and not have it feel like a gimmick. Even better, that record pushed Turnstile into the mainstream. This new status was reflected by their entry into the Foo Fighters/Black Keys “rock bands who get nominated for Grammys” stratum. As Pitchfork recently put it, they are now “the biggest, actually good band in mainstream rock.”
If Glow On was about leveling up, Never Enough is concerned with maintaining that “mainstream rock” distinction. As if that wasn’t a big enough challenge, Turnstile is working without two important contributors to Glow On— producer Mike Elizondo (who supplied that album’s radio-rock sheen) and founding guitarist Brady Ebert (who played those pummeling infectious riffs). Incredibly, Never Enough picks up the thread from its predecessor as well as could be expected. If anything, this record sounds even bigger and dreamier than Glow On. (It was recorded at the same Laurel Canyon studio where the Red Hot Chili Peppers made BloodSugarSexMagik, so it comes by the ’90s alt-rock vibes honestly.) Also: I did my music-critic duty and dragged my laptop to the back patio so I could confirm that, yes, Never Enough sounds incredible in the sunshine. I advise that you pick up some burgers and put the beer on ice, because your weekend soundtrack has arrived.
Notice how at the start of this column, I referred to Turnstile as melodic hard rock, not hardcore. Because that’s what they actually sound like. When I listen to “Sole” or “Dreaming,” I hear a band that is very good at making groove-metal. When I hear “I Care,” I know I’m in the hands of a band that understands power pop. And when I put on “Seein’ Stars,” I appreciate that other people also like “When The World Is Running Down, You Make The Best Of What’s Still Around” by The Police as much as I do. (I also assume that Turnstile’s lawyers have reached out to Sting’s people with a settlement.)
I realize that this band’s connection to the scene that berthed them is the most consistent talking point in everything that’s written about them. (“Hardcore” appears 13 times in that Pitchfork profile.) And I know that singer Brendan Yates views his band as “philosophically” hardcore or whatever. But this conversation is the least interesting thing about Turnstile. It sometimes feels like cope for music writers who otherwise would struggle to justify liking a band that sort of sounds like Incubus. (A hardcore Incubus is more respectable, I guess.) I am sure there is a 51-year-old man clad in a Social Distortion t-shirt who is posting right now on Facebook about Turnstile’s questionable proximity to “real” punk, but the rest of the world has moved on.
Their most obvious analogue is Deftones, who had an inverse relationship with their genre of origin, nu-metal. Whereas Turnstile’s hardcore bona fides are a calling card, Deftones had to move beyond their early categorization. But both bands are ultimately viewed as experimental outfits that “transcended” their style of music. On Never Enough, this “color outside the lines” quality is most evident at the heart of the record, with the songs “Sunshower” and “Look Out For Me” forming a mini-suite that starts out in a belligerent, punk-y place and winds toward an ambient, electronic tranquil. It’s a showstopper that demonstrates Turnstile’s casual confidence when it comes to doing whatever the hell they want.
This overt artiness, like White Pony era Deftones, separates them from the pack. But that wouldn’t matter if Turnstile didn’t also deliver the goods. The ambition of Never Enough, blessedly, never reads as self-seriousness. Lest things get too esoteric, they always make sure to slap some red meat on the grill. Like in the closing third of the record, when they get back to playing brilliantly smart “dumb” rock songs like “Birds” (an extremely excitable song about flying chordates) and “Slow Dive” (a successful attempt at rewriting “Sad But True”).
Given how miserable and colorless most of their peers are now — no other genre revels in performative dreariness like the lip-ring soul-patch merchants populating your local modern rock radio station — the sheer effervescence of Turnstile feels like a small miracle. And Never Enough shines like an 80-degree day after endless months of rain.
Never Enough is out 6/6 via Roadrunner. Find more information here.