The Royal Blue, a newish pub that replaced what Lyons called “an epic gay bar” where Charm City concertgoers retreated to relieve themselves in relative cleanliness, displays dozens of Charm City fliers under plexiglass on the bar. Yates, who does not drink, unsuccessfully attempted to order a Shirley Temple (no grenadine) and read through the bills, tracking Turnstile from one show, where it appears at the bottom of the lineup, to another, a few years later, at the top. For some time, that’s where it remained — one of the most beloved bands in the insular world of hardcore, known for hyper-energetic live shows where Lyons and the extremely limber Yates are often airborne, aloft above crowds teaming with stage divers.
Its musical ambitions eventually exploded into public view. In 2015, after a decade of producing largely taut, brief songs, it released the beefy, angry “Nonstop Feeling”; the high energy “Time & Space,” which experimented with psychedelic sounds, arrived three years later on the stalwart rock and metal label Roadrunner, where the band has remained.
Turnstile was perpetually touring, a lifestyle that was sidelined by coronavirus lockdowns. So the group quarantined together, and in summer 2020, when it came time to start writing its next album, decamped to Tennessee to record with the producer Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre, Linkin Park, Fiona Apple). “We spent day and night around each other, kicking ideas and making a record,” Lyons, 37, said, sitting with the band in Fang’s sparsely decorated living room with Mills, 28, on a video call. “We didn’t even know what was going to be on the other side.”
The answer was “Glow On,” a breakthrough album that reached No. 30 on the Billboard 200. Its 15 songs are anchored by freight-train guitar work and scream-along refrains, but the album has ample pockets of melody, and Yates sings as much as he yells, his reverb-treated voice lifting to the heavens. “New Heart Design,” with its tropical rhythm and Yates’s yearning lilt, sounds as if it might have been on the “Breakfast Club” soundtrack. “Eighteen years and ain’t it funny how it feels when you start to find out life’s real,” Yates sings, highlighting one of the album’s central preoccupations, the cruel, ceaseless march of time.
