Turnstile‘s Never Enough: Versions, released on 28 August 2026, is the kind of project that shouldn’t work on paper, and yet somehow does, spectacularly. A companion reimagining of last year’s Never Enough, it pulls together an almost defiantly eclectic guestlist: Hayley Williams, Elton John, Dying Fetus, Four Tet, Slayyyter, Julien Baker, Blood Orange, Dan Deacon and more, all taking a crack at songs from what was widely regarded as an instant classic on release.
Turnstile Never Enough Versions: the guestlist that defies logic
The obvious reference point is The Metallica Blacklist, the 2021 project that brought together artists from Miley Cyrus to Ghost, Rina Sawayama, Chase & Status and Kamasi Washington to reimagine cuts from the metal titans’ self-titled 1991 LP. That record worked as both a 30th anniversary celebration and a testament to how far Metallica’s reach had stretched across popular music. Turnstile are only four albums in, but Never Enough: Versions makes a credible case that they’ve pulled off the same trick in a fraction of the time.
It helps that Never Enough itself arrived with serious cultural momentum. Charli XCX name-checked Turnstile at the close of her Coachella headline set, a signal of how far the Baltimore five-piece had travelled from their US hardcore roots. By the time Never Enough landed, the band were operating in a space that felt genuinely their own: arena punk shot through with pop instincts, hardcore energy filtered through an increasingly broad palette. Versions takes that palette and hands it to an extraordinary range of collaborators.
Track by track: what each artist brings to the record
Slayyyter’s take on Birds is one of the early highlights. Drawing on the motifs that defined her album Worst Girl In America, she turns the track into a simmering electroclash banger that feels like a natural extension of her own work. Dying Fetus go in the opposite direction entirely, stripping the buzzing hardcore riffs from the same song and replacing them with scything death metal, to wonderfully brutal effect. The fact that both versions appear on the same record (and both feel like they belong) says a lot about what Turnstile have built.
Floating Points remoulds Sole into pulsating hard house. Angel Du$t take their version of Sunshower through scuzzy punk, eerie ambient electro and doom metal in the space of a single track. Four Tet goes funkier with a edm redub of Look Out For Me, while Blood Orange’s take on Light Design is a beautifully wistful, flute-powered thing entirely unto itself.
Elton John lends Seein’ Stars a twinkly piano and echoey vocal treatment that gives the track a surprisingly surreal quality. Dan Deacon swaps the mariachi hardcore of Dreaming for flittering, euphoric drum ‘n’ bass. Brandon Woody goes another way entirely, opting for smooth jazz and woozy saxophone. A.G. Cook grinds Dull through a gritty industrial filter. Hayley Williams brings slow-burn soul to Ceiling, a pairing that turns out to be one of the record’s most affecting moments.
Not every swing connects. Porches open the album on a flat note, with strained vocals and damp acoustic work on Never Enough that doesn’t quite justify its placement. Chanel Beads’ take on Dull is as listless as its title suggests. The closing Time Is Happening, featuring Julien Baker and Mustafa, feels like a collaboration that might have landed better with a little more restraint from one of its participants. These are minor stumbles on a project of considerable scope.
As Consequence noted on its release date, Never Enough: Versions dropped on 28 August 2026, and it arrives as one of the year’s most genuinely adventurous releases. Louder executive editor Merlin Alderslade, reviewing the record, called it ‘undoubtedly one of the boldest and most interesting musical projects of 2026.’ Hard to argue. Turnstile Never Enough Versions isn’t a curio or a cash-in, it’s a proper statement of where this band sits right now, and the company they keep.
