Yeah. Hi, everyone. Panthony Caketano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Turnstile album, Never Enough.

Never Enough is the fourth full-length commercial album from this Baltimore hardcore and punk band. It is also their first since the departure of founding member, Brady Ebert, who left in 2022 after the release of their last album, Glow On, a record where the band really started to diverge from the meat and potatoes metal and punk roots that their previous album stuck to, and instead started to put this really dreamy, serene spin on these genres of music that honestly was unlike anything else in the modern music landscape in the early 2020s.

It resonated with a lot of people, landing the band a couple of big Grammy nominations for tracks like "Holiday" and "Blackout". The record also debuted at number 30 on the Billboard 200. On top of all of that, Charlie XCX has also shouted them out at Coachella for a "Turnstile summer."

So with this insanely positive reception behind this album, one that frankly a lot of rock bands would kill for, I guess what choice does Turnstile have but to double down on this direction and push it even further a bit, which is what they do on this album, with a somewhat mixed bag of results, I'd say, as I do think there are quite a few very solid and punchy cuts on this LP, where once again, we're getting that same dream punk indie blend the band pulled off so well on Glow On with lots of hype riffs, shouty refrains, strong drumming.

There's the song "Dull". Or "Birds". Or "Look Out For Me" – another one of my favorite moments on the album, which is simultaneously attached to one of the most underwhelming moments on the record for me, as the track is almost seven minutes in length, which is by far the longest on the album. The reason for that being, the song slowly evolves into this chill dreamy house experience that sounds like something that would play over the speakers in a dressing room at the mall, which – it is impressive on some level that a band with Turnstile's background can do something like that, can indulge in that sound, that genre, and have it come out sounding pretty accurate to everything else in that lane. But I'm still left wondering why detour your track into something that is so bland and soulless and just agreeable or wallpaper even, which is the issue that I have with many tracks on this record.

For sure, there are some moments where the band's more serene, pillowy production and experimentation leads to some genuinely interesting and unique moments, like with the horn and reggaeton groove combo on the track "Dreaming", which is a totally crazy variation that actually manages to still kick ass from a performance standpoint. There's also "Soul", which has this totally fantastic, almost cinematic synth bridge that sounds otherworldly and intergalactic to a degree. And then the song "I Care", outside of the passages of roaring guitar riffs around the hook, this song is just legitimately a new wave pop hit in the vein of artists like The Police or New Order or even Aha. And it actually comes together really well. If the band had another crossover hit with this track, I wouldn't be surprised because it's just legitimately a very good pop song.

But then there were other cuts on the record that, to my ears, came across a little too toothless, and maybe dragging things out to 45 minutes in length, as far as the track list goes, was maybe not the best move.

The opening track, for example, with all of its very average 2000s alt radio rock riffs, it doesn't make for exactly the strongest, most thrilling start to the LP. The song "Time is Happening" sounds like the most average and phoned-in Weezer song you could possibly imagine. We also have the super ambient outro track "Magic Man", with more shouty vocals paired with these droning synthesizers that just get old after a while.

While I did definitely enjoy this album overall, to be sure, venturing into dreamier pastures while bloating the album's run time a little bit too much has led to an album that, to my ears, feels much more watered down than its predecessor. If there is a great album in here somewhere, I feel like we would need to just cut down on some of what's in the mix here in order to get there.

Never Enough is still a solid record, and what experimentation the band does engage in is commendable. I guess I just hope on a future release that the writing and whatever adventures Turnstile continues to go on just become a bit more focused and to the point, which is why I'm feeling a light to decent 7 on this album. ou can check out. Hit that up or the link to subscribe to the channel.

Anthony Fantano, Turnstile, Forever.