Never Enough

Turnstile has spent most of a decade arguing that hardcore doesn’t have to choose between brutality and melody, and “Never Enough” is the clearest statement of that argument the band has made yet. Frontman Brendan Yates produced the track himself, with additional production from Will Yip and, more unexpectedly, hyperpop architect A.G. Cook — a pairing that sounds like a mismatch on paper and instead delivers a song that shifts from crushing low-end to something close to a shoegaze wash without a single seam showing. That’s the trick this band has been building toward across four albums: real weight, real hooks, and a chorus you can actually sing back.

The album arrived as the band’s first without founding bassist Brady Ebert and first to feature guitarist Meg Mills, a lineup change that could easily have knocked the record off its footing. It didn’t. Never Enough became Turnstile’s highest Billboard 200 entry to date, and the title track’s Alternative Airplay No. 1 confirmed something that would have sounded implausible a decade ago: a hardcore band getting genuine rock-radio traction without filing the edges off. The Recording Academy agreed emphatically — Never Enough won Best Rock Album at the Grammys, with “Birds,” also from this record, taking Best Metal Performance the same night.

What makes “Never Enough” work as a song rather than just a genre experiment is restraint in exactly the places a heavier band would usually push harder. The breakdown doesn’t arrive where the structure promises it; the melody carries the tension instead, and when the heaviness does land, it reads as payoff rather than routine. It’s a hardcore song built with a pop songwriter’s patience, which is a harder needle to thread than either genre alone.

8.8/10 — the rare crossover single that actually earns the word, from a band that never stopped sounding like itself while doing it.

Hero image: Turnstile performing live at Rock en Seine festival, August 25, 2023, by ManoSolo13241324, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.