It is rare for a hardcore record to breach the walls of its own chapel and speak to the wider world. Yet that is precisely what Turnstile achieved. The Baltimore quintet, born in the DIY circuits of the early 2010s, delivered with Glow On the album that, more than any other, brought contemporary hardcore into the general conversation — all the way to Grammy nominations, an unthinkable trajectory for a genre long confined to its cellars.
The critics, out in force and near-unanimous (an 89 average across fifteen reviews), hailed a record that overflows on every side. What Turnstile pull off here is an improbable synthesis: the power and urgency of hardcore, but irrigated with pop melodies, synth washes, near-shoegaze breathing spaces, even a touch of soul. The band do not renounce their origins; they open them to the light.
Musically, everything here breathes freedom. The riffs stay sharp, the rhythm section hits hard, but hovering interludes, solar choruses and an airy production turn each track into a small celebration. Brendan Yates’s voice, by turns screamed and half-sung, embodies the contagious joy that runs through the record from end to end.
One might reproach Turnstile for having smoothed away certain rough edges, for flirting at times with an accessibility that will ruffle the genre’s purists. The grievance is audible: Glow On is no longer quite hardcore in the orthodox sense. But that willing porousness is precisely what makes it a record of its time, generous and free of dogma.
Verdict: 9/10. A luminous, unifying album, proof that a genre born in the margins can flourish in broad daylight without losing any of its flame.
