The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. – Albert Einstein
Okay, starting this article off with an Einstein quote is admittedly a little corny, definitely high school English classroom energy. On a hypothetical scale of cringe, that would register a three out of ten. Hardcore is not a genre known for nuance. But if there is one word that would encapsulate Turnstile’s presence within the present musical landscape, that word is “mystery.”
Turnstile’s latest album opens up on a flourish of ascending analog synth arpeggios reminiscent of something you’d hear in an ’80s PSA commercial, shortly before bursting into an upbeat major-key jammer, entitled “Mystery.” The guitars are dialed up to stadium-rock levels. The drums are unrelenting. Frontman Brendan Yate’s familiar voice enters center stage with a greater melodic precision than ever before. As the song enters its climax, Yates yells, “It’s been so long. All the mystery gone!” right before lead guitarist Brady Ebert shreds a metal guitar solo on a Gibson Explorer while wearing a bucket hat.
“I feel like that’s such an important part of being human, being open for mystery,” Yates ponders. “I think It’s almost human nature to make sure that you’re assigning meaning to things, especially growing up. You’re like, ‘I need to categorize this genre, I need to categorize this person, I’m this political party’ or whatever. There’s all these things that I think people find comfort in assessing into categories, but it doesn’t leave any room open for anyone else’s reality, or anyone else’s experience that might not fall within your explanation for the world.”
Turnstile’s 2018 LP, Time and Space (another nod to Einstein), took the hardcore genre and transformed it into a vivid cosmic landscape. But the band’s newest album, entitled Glow On, is noticeably more earthbound.
Like their previous albums, the band manipulates the hardcore formula by utilizing and weaponizing other genre tropes, the same way a DJ splices a set together. Glow On is punctuated with Latin percussion instruments, hip-hop beats, sprawling piano sequences, ‘90s style techno breakdowns, and shred-fest guitar solos. The third track, “No Way,” has drummer Daniel Fang playing a traditional reggaeton beat over a hardcore guitar power chord progression.
Songs might abruptly transform into completely different songs within the same track. Verses and choruses flow in and out of each other, switch places, or might not exist at all.
“I feel like one thing we’re not good at is writing really long songs,” Yates elaborates. “Maybe it’s just part of our attention span or something— once you get it out, you gotta move onto something new. I definitely had the intention of wanting the songs and more feelings to flow, almost like a mixtape as far as being able to kind of constantly be shifting. At the same time, every song can stand alone.”
Musical genres, like so many other human constructs, are simply boxes that act as frameworks for a shared reality. The greatest artists simply existed, while the human hive-mind built the genres around them after the fact.
“I always have a hard time with genres,” says Yates. “Everyone’s perspective is so different on how they’re categorizing all these things. Even things that I love, I always hesitate putting them in some sort of category, because there’s so many things that I love that don’t necessarily fall perfectly under someone’s umbrella definition of something. I like to push that idea further. I think it’s always worth exploring different dimensions of music, the same way that humans have different dimensions and feelings.”
While on stage, Yates himself is a force of chaotic-neutral. Most hardcore singers look like their training for the MMA, but there’s a detachment within Yates’s physical demeanor- as if part of him is occupying some other plane of existence. In keeping with the band’s anachronistic aesthetic, Yates physically embodies another historical quote, this time from Mark Twain:
“Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.”
If we’re being honest, this quote belongs in a 2005 high school freshman’s Myspace page. Solid eight out of ten on the cringe scale. Did Mark Twain even actually say this? Does it matter? Nothing is original. Time isn’t real. The cringe only serves to remind us of when we feel exposed and truly are seen for what we are. That is the feeling of true vulnerability.
“Every record that we put out, it’s always a very vulnerable thing, you know?” Yates confesses. “I remember before we put out our first LP, Nonstop Feeling, I remember being like, ‘Man, no one is going to connect with this at all! But I’m glad that we made this because this felt really good to make, because I felt right, even if this is the last Turnstile record.”
“With everything we put out there’s always a level of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety. But I think it’s just part of doing something creative. I think if you lack that, maybe it’s not as important to you as it should be, you know?”
The song “T.L.C. (Turnstile Love Connection)” kicks off with a classic d-beat verses before dropping into an East Coast hardcore-style breakdown, during which Yates breaks the fourth wall, flat out stating: “I want to thank you for letting me be myself.”
Who is he thanking here? You, the listener? All his peers in the hardcore punk scene? Some bigger, more mysterious life entity? Yates prefers it to be open-ended.
“I think every song is always kind of about specific personal experiences,” he says. “But then again, there is a lot of excitement for me to be leaving those things open for interpretation of how someone else might be able to perceive it. There’s always some sort of open-endedness to how we like to put songs together that kind of leaves that door open for interpretation.”
In spite of everything, what’s most important to Turnstile is honoring their roots. Afterall, it’s easy to get lost in the mystery if you don’t remember where you came from.
“We come from playing hardcore punk shows, you know?” Yates confirms. “I think that’s the essence, that’s the scene that we come from— growing up playing shows and going to hardcore punk shows in Baltimore. It’s where we come from. Some people that know us may understand we come from hardcore and punk. But then for someone else, the closest reference is like Metallica or Slayer, or I don’t know, Blackpink or something like that [laughs]. I don’t know how people connect the dots. Everyone has their own way, so I’m definitely not closed off to anyone’s perspective.”
Watch the video for “Fly Again” here:
For more from Turnstile, check out their official website.
Photos courtesy of Turnstile and Elena de Soto.
