There's plenty to unpack coming away from Turnstile's feature length film debut, NEVER ENOUGH. 

There is a certain audacity you have to consider - the artistic ambition required to not only conceptualize an album as a film, and vice versa, but the vision and wherewithal to make it cohesive is a marvel in of itself. Throughout the 55-minute runtime, the seamlessness and interplay of sights and sounds begs the question of what actually came first. 

Then there is the lowest hanging fruit - that an audience, a mainstreamed one at that - has the opportunity to flirt with the subculture of hardcore on this level. The combination of stage dives and the crunch of movie theater popcorn is just not something that ever seemed likely. And while the novelty is enough to acknowledge, it's a footnote at best.  

Then, there is the merit of the film. 

Leaning on the old adage of everything on screen is deliberate, the scope and symbolism that permeates throughout the film is substantial. Among the more obvious takeaways - the prevalent hue of blue, the contrast between muted and matte-finished cinematography with wide panned shots of lush shades and rich landscapes. There's a real intentionality in every detail such that dissecting it to make sense of it, almost diminishes the magic. 

Then there are the more overt instances, like the reoccurring jet ski, the stuffed animal-wall possibly nodding to the band's memorable 2022 NPR performance and the instances of interpretive dance countered with performance footage teeming with hardcore's barricade-less ballet. 

Rather than wane some sense of cinematic credibility with a check list of comparative filmmakers for reference, the merit of the film goes well beyond the meat and potatoes of narrative and visuals - but rather - being so self-assured as to think this big in the first place. Never, at point in the rollout for NEVER ENOUGH did Turnstile play the role of the windfall hardcore band that no one expected to achieve such heights, instead, NEVER ENOUGH, at every development, has played out with the band meeting, then superseding expectation. All the while tapping further and further into the kind of potential that is far from circumstantial and could only be actualized by meticulous design. 

On the topic of hardcore...

For as much of an artistic achievement NEVER ENOUGH is, there is a communal quality to the film that bears an important subtext, one that speaks to the DNA of Turnstile. For as much as the band has been praised for - and deservedly so - remaining loyal to their hardcore, DIY, VFW-hall, barricade-less roots, NEVER ENOUGH is that much more significant because of its shared sense of triumph. 

Think back to the grunge explosion in response to the glam-glut of the late 80's, or the pillage of punk in the mid-90's - when the big business of music was hellbent on finding the next Green Day, Rancid and Bad Religion. While many of the stars from those respective eras would go onto cultivate enduring legacies, amass stardom and cement their place in rock music forever, every single one of them were chastised as "sellouts" among the very same base that first brought on their initial buzz.

Piercing popular culture on a mainstream level, came with it the realization that those bands, that subculture and it's entrenched community, were somehow compromised in light of their greater accessibility. That sense of ownership between fan and their favorite band, somehow counted for less as success allowed more people to partake. And yet, from the meteoric rise of Glow On to the inevitable coronation that has defined NEVER ENOUGH, "sellout" is a concept so beyond antiquated, for the hardcore community that has galvanized around Turnstile, it's a reference that has never even crept into their consciousness, let alone been part of their language.  

It's maybe the most profound takeaway from NEVER ENOUGH. 

In much the same way a great hardcore show is measured by the shared, symbiotic relationship between the pop of the fans and the command of the band - the parallels coming out of the theater seemed plainly obvious.

For as much as the wide theatrical release of NEVER ENOUGH was both a personal and professional victory of Turnstile, hardcore's willingness to share their champion with the rest of the world and affirm what they already knew underscores a shared win for everyone. 

As for an assessment of the praise, prowess and potential that come packaged with the project, it would seem that NEVER ENOUGH certainly fits.