TURNSTILE

What came first: falling in love with a band that shouldn't make you feel hopeful, or realizing you've been running away from things your whole life instead of toward them? I'm three miles into this Turnstile-heavy run and I can't stop thinking about it.

Here's what I know about Turnstile: Baltimore hardcore band, formed 2010, signed to Roadrunner Records in 2021 which made every punk purist lose their minds. Here's what I didn't know until right now, mile marker four with "MYSTERY" still ringing in my ears: hardcore punk can sound like connection instead of rejection. That's not supposed to happen. Hardcore is about walls—building them, smashing through them, defending them. Turnstile makes hardcore that wants to pull you in. It's deeply uncomfortable if you've spent two decades using music to keep people at arm's length.

Top 5 reasons this playlist destroys my entire theory about why hardcore exists:

1. "MYSTERY" opens with groove, not aggression—Brendan Yates sounds like he actually wants you to stay, not leave. That's not how this genre works.

2. "HOLIDAY" into "All The Way Dumb" (Angel Du$t) creates momentum that feels like running toward someone, not away. I've made a career out of running away.

3. "Blue by You" has a disco beat. In a hardcore playlist. And it works. Barry would fight me in the store over this.

4. The Mall Grab house tracks ("The Real Thing," "Gravity") don't feel like interruptions—they feel like catching your breath before diving back in. Turns out hardcore kids can dance.

5. "ALIEN LOVE CALL" hits at track eleven with Blood Orange guest vocals and sounds like hope. Hardcore isn't supposed to sound like hope. That's the whole point. Isn't it?

Let me tell you what happens when you sequence a playlist like this: the first three tracks establish that Turnstile has figured out how to make hardcore punk that doesn't alienate everyone who isn't already in the pit. "MYSTERY" and "HOLIDAY" come from GLOW ON, the 2021 Roadrunner album that had Wire magazine and Pitchfork writing about hardcore like it was art. Which it is. Which it's always been. But Turnstile made it undeniable—Mike Elizondo production, Diplo collaboration rumors, the whole thing sounds expensive and raw at the same time.

Then Angel Du$t shows up—same Baltimore scene, featuring members of Turnstile, but poppier, more melodic. "All The Way Dumb" into "Blue by You" is where the playlist stops being about aggression and starts being about movement. Literally. You can't run angry for fourteen tracks. Well, you can—I have—but you shouldn't. Your form falls apart. You start running at things instead of with them.

The Mall Grab tracks in the middle ("The Real Thing," "Gravity") are genius sequencing. Lo-fi house, Australian producer, should have nothing to do with Baltimore hardcore. But both genres understand one thing: repetition isn't boring, it's meditative. Four-on-the-floor house beats and hardcore breakdowns both create space to think while your body keeps moving. Dick would appreciate this—he'd know exactly which Mall Grab EP these came from and why the vinyl pressing matters. I just know it works at mile six when your brain is trying to quit but your legs still remember the pattern.

"BLACKOUT" snaps you back to pure Turnstile intensity—this is from Time & Space, 2018, before the Roadrunner deal, when they were still on Roadrunner's parent company's radar but keeping it indie. Will Yip production, that Philly studio sound, everything compressed and urgent. Then "Can't Deny It" and "Generator" push through the wall where most runs fall apart. This is the moment—around minute twenty-eight, track nine and ten—where you either quit or you find another gear you didn't know existed.

The last stretch is pure emotional payoff. "ALIEN LOVE CALL" shouldn't work in a hardcore playlist—it's got Blood Orange (Dev Hynes), it's got melody, it's got vulnerability. But that's exactly why it works here. You're not trying to prove anything anymore. You're just running. "Drop" gives you one more house beat to carry you home, and "NEW HEART DESIGN" into "Control" close it out with the understanding that hardcore and hope aren't opposites. They're the same energy pointed in different directions.

What came first: the music or the realization that maybe I've been using the wrong genres to process the wrong feelings? Turns out when you stop running away from things and start running toward something—even if it's just the end of a playlist—the music sounds completely different. Turnstile figured this out in 2021. Took me three years and fourteen tracks to catch up.

The Lakefront Trail isn't giving me answers today. But for thirty-two minutes, it gave me a different question. That's better than nothing. That's actually everything.