Turnover’s 2019 co-headlining tourmates TURNSTILE deservedly get a large portion of the praise these days for pushing modern hardcore out of its comfort zone. Still, there was good reason these two bands have been kindreds all the way up from the underground, as you could easily argue that the Virginia Beach band’s transformation from emotive post-hardcore into dreamy indie rock reveries and pop light spectrum experimentation has had them redesigning the multi-faceted form just as well, which in turn has made it all the easier for the rest of the scene to test their own sound’s limits, too.

With Turnover’s sixth studio album, Down On Earth, the four-piece are once again going even further in doing that for themselves: they’re going it entirely on their own. Following a rich decade of releases on original home Run for Cover Records and heading into Studio 4 each time with longtime producer Will Yip, Earth Analog’s Zac Montez takes over the boards here and the effort arrives self-released on their own independent label. More resoundingly here, however, is they’re putting full trust into their own creative intuition and eccentricities with no limitations to hold them back.

It has resulted in a strange dichotomy of being one of Turnover’s most beguiling listens as well as one that pulls in a wistful “return to form” luster for their original heads, whatever that definition even means at this point in their case. The soft light flicker of guitar waves disorient themselves in the gravity-shifting amber heavens which they dalliance currents, and yet, the rockism of their live sound crashes through and through. As much as frontman Austin Getz has become an agile romanticist, he’s letting a welcome oblivion guide the loose direction of his voice — at times leaning more heavily into a lower register on this turn that darkens the sky without making it something to fear. Maybe they’re calling it Down on Earth because the whole of it is their most extraterrestrial affair yet — one in which their world of beyondness and that which they inhabit collide through yet another seasonal shift in their sound.

Highlights: “Wheelie for One”, “I’m Up, I’m Up”, “Little Bees Don’t Bite”

Turnover’s Down On Earth is available now.

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