Track Attack: Turnover — ‘Bonnie (Rhythm & Melody)’

Posted: by The Editor

Photo by Aaron Siow

Photo by Aaron Siow

Beginning as arguably the most underrated “soft-grunge” act to spawn from the Run For Cover/No Sleep Records roster of 2012-2014ish, very few would’ve guessed that Turnover would be the ones to stick the cleanest landing after their leap from pop-punk to indie. Whereas Basement’s Promise Everything and Balance And Composure’s Light We Made ultimately alienated fans for either their intimacy with pop-rock, or their directionless attempt at Cure-esque goth-rock, Turnover’s 2015 record Peripheral Vision was a surprisingly sleek transition into gazey, dreamy yet still melodic indie rock. Though musically repetitive, the brisk basslines and hazy guitar effects hanging over Peripheral Vision‘s 11 tracks stripped away much of the unnecessary angst of their earlier material, lending themselves to Austin Getz’s genuinely chilling lyrics about the crushing uncertainty of his early twenties. If nothing else, Peripheral Vision was the bridge into indie for a whole swath of kids making their exit from Warped Tour-dom.

Unfortunately, like the other two singles from Turnover’s forthcoming record Good Nature, “Bonnie (rhythm & melody)” is yet another uninspiring sibling to any one song that the band’s dropped since 2015, which includes last year’s excellent Humblest Pleasures seven-inch. The band’s massive sonic overhaul between 2013’s Magnolia and PV proved that they were capable of shapeshifting a la Title Fight or even Brand New, which is why fans shouldn’t have expected anything less for Good Nature. Instead, what we’ve gotten so far are three songs that sound like PV melded with the new Real Estate album; essentially the difference between Coke and Pepsi.

“Bonnie” follows the same groove as nearly every PV track, it features roughly the same instrumental effects and worst of all, it doesn’t even offer a vaguely memorable hook. Catchiness was the paramount of PV; a delightful sendoff to their pop-punk past by appropriating the genre’s earworminess and turning it into something fresh and promising. Although it’s possible that Turnover chose to hold onto their most daring cuts for when the full album streams, this truly lackluster batch of singles from a band who’ve historically pushed their own boundaries is unexpectedly disheartening.

Eli Enis | @eli_enis