The 5 Best Versions On TURNSTILE’s ‘NEVER ENOUGH: VERSIONS’

One year and counting removed since its arrival, and NEVER ENOUGH has yet again proven that TURNSTILE are deservedly becoming one of the biggest zeitgeists in progressive hardcore (and the greater landscape of mainstream alternative rock for that matter…) without losing sight on the substance behind their art.

Ahead of a huge second leg North American tour in support of the album with an even crazier diverse curation of openers that very much reps their reach, they band has given the album a victory lap in pseudo-remix fashion featuring some of those names as well as more recent openers alongside a spectrum of underground legends from their native Baltimore such as avant-experimentalists Dan Deacon and Panda Bear plus death metal beasts Dying Fetus, contemporary genre-shifting influencers in current It-electroclash savior Slayyyter and futuristic synth-pop songwriter Oklou, while also reaching beyond the realm with appearances by jazz futurist Shabaka, jazz traditionalist Brandon Woody, and — sure, why not — a robotically-enhanced Sir Elton John.

Whether you want to call it a flex on who fucks with them nowadays or a representation of their impact in moving hardcore across the music culture, TURNSTILE’s NEVER ENOUGH: VERSIONS is an incredibly interesting experiment — and perhaps glimpse into the band’s future — in showing how malleable their sound is when placed into the hands of their kindreds and spiritual peers. It’s also a dense, 22-track offering with a lot to sink your ears into and no real weak spots throughout — just different fascinations, with these five being the best of them to reshape its rainbow.

5. “CEILING: HAYLEY WILLIAMS VERSION”

Considering she regards them as her FUGAZI, you would think maybe Hayley Williams might keep those post-hardcore ethos in tact with her contribution. Instead, the Paramore frontwoman is very much firmly in her own experimental shit that’s come to define her own output this past year, which in turn is a very FUGAZI thing to do. The echoes of Brendan Yate’s voice reverberating through an empty room are brought up closer to the breath in a very smooth, lucid transformation of the short-form original, replacing its clock-ticking beat with minimalistic 808s and effervescent, dreamscaped layers made from her own backing echoes. It’s TURNSTILE’s glimpse of a dream realized in a different dimension, albeit while staring up at that ceiling in a warmer room.

4. “LIGHT DESIGN: BLOOD ORANGE VERSION”

When I heard Essex Honey — the fifth studio album from Blood Orange — during last year’s crowded Q4 release onslaught, I knew I had not only fucked up and slept on another low-key classic of ultra cool experimental R&B pop from Dev Hynes’ creative brain by not having the time to give it enough space to breathe. I also missed out on a chance to hear just how integral his stylistic fingerprints were to flickering through the rainbow of NEVER ENOUGH‘s original arch. This redesign of “LIGHT DESIGN” reaches the other end of it, wholly transmitted through a softer light here of haloing vocal layers convening through a single ray. A tendril acoustic guitar and flute dalliance around while synths beam radiance. Behind TURNSTILE’s faint prism is an even cooler shade in Blood Orange’s reflection.

3. “SUNSHOWER: ANGEL DU$T VERSION”

If you really needed any further confirmation that the genealogy of the modern day Baltimore hardcore scene which TURNSTILE brought unto the masses began at the same place on the timeline as where Brendan Yates and Justice Tripp crossed paths, then Angel Du$t’s take on “Sunshower” is that full circle moment. It makes sense that this would be the track that would compliment the Venn diagram crossover between each band’s very aggressive leanings tend to go when they aren’t exploring their own respective outer cosmos of the pit. In the AD universe, their take on stormchasing joy puts maybe a bit more danger in the air while holding the burning feeling of the sun closer to your skin. When Tripp shouts “TURNSTILE!” in just the same way as he has “ANGEL DU$T!” throughout the band’s bit bite anthems, that’s just his way of loudly reminding the world how deep the shared DNA runs through his veins.

2. “NEVER ENOUGH: ROD LEE VERSION”

Rod Lee is a bonafide O.G. Bmore legend of its underground club and mixtape scene, and the fact that TURNSTILE got him to link up with them for VERSIONS is a testament to how deep their reverence to the sounds of the city run beyond just the ones they’ve come up in within its hardcore limits. Something the two sides have in common are the hard times the city’s leaves embedded in your soul, and here, Lee completely switches up the transcendent energy of the album opener with a throwback party-rap pity party about never feeling like anything you do for your S.O. is ever enough, interpolating Brendan Yates’ choral howl into a call-and-response anthem that draws a line. It’s the one you reach for when you’re down-and-out, but in need of dancing the pain away.

1. “DULL: A.G. COOK VERSION”

Lately, A.G. Cook has been getting himself more involved in making rock music in varying degrees with familiar creative partners and ones you might not have seen coming. With his version of “DULL”, it begs the question: what if TURNSTILE made an album produced by one of the modern day’s pioneering producer forces of its experimental electronic art-pop currents? It’s an interesting concept in which Cook pulls off intriguingly. What makes this one a standout in the assignment is how he doesn’t disregard any of the band’s propensity for big, heavy-sweeping breakdowns to make way for his own version. Rather, he deconstructs them into breakbeats and spliced fissions of riffs, resulting in the kind of experimental hardcore-electronic fusion that many of us would probably love to see exploded in a further scale.