Five years ago today, Turnstile released GLOW ON, the album that transformed them from hardcore favourites into one of the biggest alternative bands in the world. Since then they have toured arenas, earned multiple Grammy nominations and released NEVER ENOUGH, which finally won them Best Rock Album earlier this year.
Even with that Grammy sitting on the shelf, there is a pretty convincing argument that GLOW ON remains the better record.
The critical response in 2021 was enormous. GLOW ON currently holds a 92 on Metacritic, with all 13 reviews counted as positive. NME awarded it five stars, while Pitchfork called it “spectacular” and argued that Turnstile weren’t trying to escape hardcore, but instead take it to its highest visibility. That feels particularly accurate five years later. The album widened what Turnstile could be without completely disconnecting them from what had made the band exciting in the first place.
It wasn’t just release week hype either. GLOW ON topped the 2021 album lists at SPIN, BrooklynVegan and FLOOD, while NME placed it ninth. Its success ultimately led to three Grammy nominations in 2023, with BLACKOUT nominated for Best Rock Song and Best Metal Performance and HOLIDAY up for Best Rock Performance. Despite all that acclaim, GLOW ON itself was never nominated for Best Rock Album.
That finally changed for Turnstile with NEVER ENOUGH. Its 2025 follow up pushed the band’s experimentation even further and earlier this year won Best Rock Album at the Grammys, while BIRDS also picked up Best Metal Performance. Yet the interesting thing is that the Grammy winner still hasn’t overtaken GLOW ON with critics or listeners.
Metacritic currently has GLOW ON at 92 compared with 83 for NEVER ENOUGH. Album of the Year tells a similar story, with GLOW ON holding an 88 critic score and 81 user score compared with 84 and 75 for its successor. Thousands of listeners have rated both records, making that user score gap particularly interesting.
Some critics have picked up on the difference too. Pitchfork praised the ambition of NEVER ENOUGH but questioned why Turnstile occasionally appeared to be holding back, suggesting that SLOWDIVE and SOLE contained enough familiar ideas to resemble GLOW ON B sides. It highlights the difficult position Turnstile created for themselves by making such a significant record in the first place.
NEVER ENOUGH arguably goes further and its Grammy win is a massive achievement, but GLOW ON was the breakthrough that made all of this possible. Five years later, critics still rate it higher, listeners still rate it higher and its reputation as one of the defining alternative records of the decade has only strengthened.