Here's the uncomfortable truth about hardcore punk and running: both are supposed to hurt, but neither should feel like punishment. Turnstile figured this out somewhere between Baltimore basements and festival stages, and this playlist is the proof.
Most hardcore bands treat melody like a weakness to be stomped out. Turnstile treats it like a strategic weapon. When "MYSTERY" opens with those synth stabs and Brendan Yates howling over production that sounds like it was recorded in a bedroom and a cathedral simultaneously, you're getting the mission statement: we're not here to choose between aggression and beauty. We're here to prove they're the same thing at different tempos.
The Angel Du$t inclusion isn't a detour—it's a Trojan horse. "All The Way Dumb" sounds like if Jawbreaker decided to write bubblegum without irony. It's the moment the playlist admits that sometimes running toward something feels better than running away from everything. Dev Hynes' fingerprints start showing up in the margins. The Mall Grab collaboration on "The Real Thing" shouldn't work on paper—UK house producer meets Baltimore hardcore kids—but it works in your legs, which is the only place that matters when you're three miles deep.
Then "Gravity" and "BLACKOUT" arrive to remind you why hardcore still matters in 2024, why it mattered in 1981, why it'll matter whenever someone needs to convert rage into forward motion. Some feelings don't need space or subtlety. Some feelings need Daniel Fang's drums to sound like someone throwing a drum kit down stadium stairs while you sprint up them.
But the genius move—the reason this works as running music instead of just a good hardcore playlist—is "Can't Deny It" landing exactly when your body starts negotiating with your brain about stopping. The production gives Yates room to breathe. The hook becomes mantra through repetition: "I can't deny it." You can't deny the burning in your lungs, can't deny you've got two miles left, can't deny that you chose this. The acknowledgment becomes the fuel.
From there, "Generator" sustains what "Can't Deny It" unlocked. Blood Orange shows up for "ALIEN LOVE CALL" because Turnstile stopped caring about genre gatekeepers around the same time you stopped caring about running gatekeepers who say hardcore is too aggressive for cardio. "NEW HEART DESIGN" experiments with space and melody like the band's actively trying to alienate purists.
Then Marisa Dabice from Mannequin Pussy closes with "Control"—a track that refuses to be polite, refuses to soften, refuses to let you coast through your cooldown. Some endings should feel like statements. When hardcore stops being therapy and starts being cardio, this is what it sounds like: fast, purposeful, and completely uninterested in your excuses.
