Rating: 9.5 / 10 Stars
TURNSTILE is: Brendan Yates (Vocals), Brady Ebert (Guitars), Pat McCrory (Guitars), Franz Lyons (Bass and Vocals), and Daniel Fang (Drums)
REVIEW – Some albums feel less like a release date on the calendar and more like a door being kicked open in the middle of a crowded room. TURNSTILE’s GLOW ON, set to arrive August 27th through Roadrunner Records, has that kind of electricity around it: immediate, physical, colorful, and impossible to reduce to hardcore alone. This is the Baltimore band’s third studio album, recorded with producer Mike Elizondo, and its 15-track sequence feels like the sound of a band turning pressure into joy without losing an ounce of impact.
The opener “MYSTERY” is the perfect ignition point because it does not ask permission to be huge. It carries the speed and bounce of hardcore, but there is light pouring through the cracks. Brendan Yates sounds urgent without being trapped by anger, and the band’s rhythm section makes the whole track feel like forward motion with its arms wide open. It is not just a song about uncertainty; it is a song that makes uncertainty feel alive.
“BLACKOUT” hits with sharper edges, a compact blast of groove, shout, and momentum that reminds listeners TURNSTILE have not abandoned the pit. They have simply expanded what can happen inside it. The track moves like a body in motion, but the hooks are undeniable, showing how the band can make hardcore feel catchy without making it clean.
“DON’T PLAY” keeps that kinetic rush going, while “UNDERWATER BOI” drifts into one of the album’s most dreamlike spaces. That contrast is the point. GLOW ON is not built like a traditional hardcore record sprinting from impact to impact. It breathes. It floats. It swerves into melody, texture, and strange pockets of atmosphere, then snaps back into motion before the listener can get too comfortable.
“HOLIDAY” is one of the record’s great anthems, a track that feels like sunshine on concrete. It has the communal energy of a live-show eruption, but also the looseness of a band unafraid to let joy become part of the heaviness. Hardcore often gets discussed through rage, discipline, and confrontation. TURNSTILE understand all of that, but they also understand release. “HOLIDAY” sounds like release in its purest form.
The short burst of “HUMANOID / SHAKE IT UP” and the rapid-fire “ENDLESS” keep the album’s body moving, while “FLY AGAIN” adds another bright, melodic lift. TURNSTILE are not softening hardcore here. They are proving that melody can hit just as hard when the spirit behind it is this restless.
“ALIEN LOVE CALL,” featuring Blood Orange, is the album’s most elegant left turn. Rather than feeling like a guest feature pasted onto a hardcore record, it opens the entire album into a different emotional dimension. The song glows, drifts, and pulses with a kind of tender weirdness, showing that TURNSTILE’s expansion is not decorative. It is spiritual. Blood Orange also appears on “LONELY DEZIRES,” with additional vocal contributions on “ENDLESS,” further underlining the album’s willingness to stretch beyond expected hardcore borders.
“WILD WRLD” and “DANCE-OFF” push the record toward movement and rhythm, turning the floor into part of the song’s architecture. “NEW HEART DESIGN” then arrives like a mission statement hiding in plain sight. The phrase suggests exactly what TURNSTILE are doing here: not abandoning the heart of their sound, but redesigning how it pumps.
“T.L.C. (TURNSTILE LOVE CONNECTION)” is short, bright, and central to the album’s personality. It feels like a manifesto in miniature, a reminder that this band’s aggression has always carried invitation inside it. TURNSTILE are not interested in gatekeeping heaviness. They are interested in connection.
The closing stretch, from “NO SURPRISE” into “LONELY DEZIRES,” leaves the album glowing rather than collapsing. There is loneliness here, but it is not hopeless. There is longing, but it moves. That is the real miracle of GLOW ON: it takes hardcore’s physical vocabulary and fills it with color, openness, and possibility.
With GLOW ON, TURNSTILE seem ready to deliver one of the most important heavy music albums of the year: a record that is fast, bright, strange, emotional, sweaty, melodic, and absolutely alive. It is hardcore with windows open. It is punk with a pulse wide enough to let funk, soul, dream-pop, alt-rock, and pure movement rush through. It is a band refusing to choose between impact and joy.
For more information on TURNSTILE, visit:
www.TurnstileHardcore.com
www.Facebook.com/TurnstileHC
www.X.com/TURNSTILEHC
www.Instagram.com/TurnstileLuvConnection
www.YouTube.com/@Turnstile
www.Spotify.com/Artist/Turnstile
