Latest news with #BadBrains
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Turnstile's new album sounds awesome, empty and irrationally inspiring
Flex your head and this new Turnstile album will feel vacuous. Here goes the reigning band in contemporary hardcore punk, refusing to articulate what they stand for or against, delivering empty gestures with tidal force. But once you get your body involved, the Baltimore quintet's fourth full-length, 'Never Enough,' becomes undeniable. This music is all rush, all urgency, a crushing avalanche of sensation, ballistic and beautiful. Why resist that? Life is short, pleasure is irrational, and if there are any mosh-like reflexes encoded in your physiology, these songs can quite literally remind you how to move through life itself. Yet, as the pit churns, peripheral clumps of lookie-loos continue to ignore this Cartesian riptide, preferring to blab on social media about the scalability of punk, the laws of gatekeeping in a digital age and whether a hardcore band should be allowed to make us feel happy the same way an Incubus song might. Does the material success of Turnstile still bum out hardcore purists? Or have hardcore's purest been quietly rooting for them all along? And what are we really gaining from this endless, tail-chasing talk about popularity and reach? Wondering whether Turnstile is bigger than Bad Brains, Black Flag or Minor Threat feels as exciting as comparing TikTok to fire, stone tools and the wheel. What's most exciting about 'Never Enough' is that it's a massive-sounding album about what isn't there. The opening title track is a vague meditation on feelings of inadequacy, somehow sung with an ardency that should instantly make anyone within earshot feel 10 feet taller. Then everything melts into homework-playlist synth ambiance, foreshadowing the dreamy confusion that lingers for the rest of the ride. On the very next track, the breakneck 'Sole,' bandleader Brendan Yates sings about feeling 'so high, there's nowhere left to lean, when everything is out of your control.' What does he mean? Unclear. But he sounds like he means it with the entirety of his being. This has to be the closest hardcore gets to skydiving, right? Massive thrills in a big emptiness. So with the help of drummer Daniel Fang, bassist Franz Lyon, and guitarists Pat McCrory and Meg Mills, the intensity and meaninglessness continue to accrue as 'Never Enough' unfolds — with much of the credit/blame falling on Yates as he makes his lyrics more aerodynamic, minimizing his consonants, going full-throttle on the vowels. It's easy to get a sense that words — or even worse, the ideas that words tend to contain — might clog up the sonic catharsis, leaving every lyric to aspire to the power of 'whoa.' Incredible singer, though. Yates can move a melody like Sting, then scream in a blazing monotone like Zack de la Rocha, toggling between modes as if redirecting the part in his hair. His sense of melody feels increasingly colorful, economical and fingerprinty in the wake of Turnstile's terrific 2021 album 'Glow On,' and he loves delivering his rainbow notes in groups of five. 'Slow Dive' has a refrain of 'oh-oh-oh-oh-oh'; on 'Dreaming,' the word 'know' grows into 'know-oh-oh-oh-oh'; throughout 'Time Is Happening,' each line lasts five syllables — and while that titular phrase is almost comically vapid, Yates makes it feel as heavy as life and death. There's a profound yearning to be felt every time he opens his throat, and if anything tethers Turnstile to the greater ideology of hardcore, maybe it's that. Or, if not, should all of this band's gorgeous nothingness be parsed as a new iteration of punk nihilism? From the Sex Pistols on down, punk's rage against our doomed future has always been underscored by a latent yearning for peace and justice. Where does Turnstile currently stand in that continuum? Who knows? But at a moment when plenty of punks are out in the street protesting rising authoritarianism and senseless war, it feels baffling for the most celebrated band in all of hardcore to be this politically inert. Regardless, the musical zeal of 'Never Enough' at least earns it Rorschach-blot status. Listen closely to these songs, then to yourself. Maybe you hear loud, friendly, exhilarating 21st-century rock music that's easy to feel, easy to feel a part of. Or maybe you hear Turnstile's blank-slated spaciousness as a gesture of possibility, inspiration and empowerment. To do what? That's on you. But whether it's out of an airplane, into a mosh pit or into the streets, this music will push you if you don't jump.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Should I Leave My American Partner?
Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers' questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@ Don't want to miss a single column? Sign up to get 'Dear James' in your inbox. Dear James, I'm 27 years old, I live in New York, and I'm in a healthy, loving relationship with a guy I met here. He's caring and hardworking, and my family and friends love him for me. The problem is, I don't know if I want to live in the United States long term. I'm from abroad—a country far enough away that my partner has never been—and I moved to the U.S. on a temporary work visa. As my relationship becomes more serious, I grapple with the thought of having to be here forever. I never grew up thinking I'd migrate anywhere permanently. I'm very close to my family back home, and I have a comfortable, if not cushy, life there. In the U.S., I deal with the social, political, cultural, and legal hurdles of being a foreigner in a place where the current climate isn't always the most friendly. I don't have the financial or personal freedoms I would like. I deal with racists. I get homesick. My partner loves his job, it pays extremely well, and it legally ties him to working within the United States. Basically, he could never move for me. But when I think about committing to him, I can't help mourning everything I imagine I'd be giving up. Maybe I'm just being young and foolish and don't realize that my problems are a speck in the grand scheme of things. I don't know. Perhaps you can tell me? Dear Reader, As an expat, self-transplanted from England to be in America with my American wife, I feel you. This is a beautiful, crazy, wide-as-you-like country, merciless in some ways, impossibly generous in others, and for better or worse I became myself here. That's one of the things America can do. No gains without losses, though, and I feel the pull of home too: all the occasions missed, the conversations that never happened, the hangs unhung … It's sort of a shadow on me, my life's dark side of the moon. But let me ask you this: Are you thrilled to be with this guy? I mean thrilled to bits, thrilling to his touch, all of that? You say he's caring, hardworking, your family loves him—all good stuff. Great stuff. And I don't want to do him an injustice. But somewhere, at some level, in some layer of your being, you've got to be thrilled. I think perhaps if you were thrilled, you wouldn't be asking yourself these questions. I could be wrong, though, and the two of you might have a scorching and vibrant thing that you have modestly under-described in your letter. Whatever the case, here's my advice: Don't leave. America is a challenge. America is an invitation. America puts you on your mettle. Especially right now, in (to use your phrase) the 'current climate' of the United States: America needs you! Reading the news and listening to Bad Brains, James By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and/or clarity. Article originally published at The Atlantic
