While it seems surreal, the best way to imagine this year’s album by the Turnstyles, Turnstyles 2, released locally by Black & Wyatt Records and by Head Perfume Records in Dresden, Germany, is a bicycle built for two towing a garage behind it.
Technically, the band Turnstyles may not record in a garage, or even rehearse in one. But such details matter little when such oil-stained grease monkey habitats so clearly inspire the sound of this duo, composed of drummer/singer Graham Winchester and guitarist/singer Seth Moody (both of whom play in Jack Oblivian & the Sheiks, among many other bands). One can safely assume they both get under the hood, for this is a record as raw and scrappy as a hubcap full of bolts, loud as a glasspack muffler revving up in a closed shop.
Mostly, though, this garage is a place of freedom. One can try anything, and you can be sure that Turnstyles do. Sure, you can call it Maximum R&B one minute if they’re channeling The Who in their earliest incarnation, but just wait a song or two and soon they’ll be doing their best Everly Brothers-on-amphetamines act with “So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad),” an angular guitar riff right out of early Eno on “Over You,” or an especially dark take on surf music, as in “Suicide Surf Break” or “Dead Surfer.”
In the end, those latter songs are telling, for surf rock is at the heart of what this guitar-and-drums duo does (other titles on the LP include “Celebrity Surf Day” and “Sex Wax”). It helps that both Winchester and Moody sing, and can even carry off some sub-Everly Brothers but nonetheless ragged-but-right harmonies when they want to. That, combined with the duo’s ear for arrangements and penchant for experimentation, helps to keep things interesting. Even if some of these tunes are pop or punk, there’s a surfer’s heart beating at their center.
“It’s a city park in the depths of dark/It’s a shopping mall in the bathroom stall/It’s a petting zoo, eating barbecue,” they sing in the pop-infused “Twilight Side Boy,” shouting scenarios in rapid-fire succession by way of venting about some rejection. And while their attitude is pure punk at such moments, both singers’ dispositions belie even their toughest lyrical spitting, for this music exudes the playfulness of two kids in a candy store.
Even when Winchester adopts the perspective of a vampire, on the album’s lead track, it’s with such a sense of abandon (the music slamming like The Jam) and roller-coaster-level fun that it’s a world away from David Bowie, Nick Cave, or any goth wannabes. Like the group’s debut, reviewed here in 2020, Turnstyles 2 is an up album — even more so, considering that this is a double platter package, with 27 of the 30 tracks clocking in at three minutes or less, and some of those even under two.
This sense of abandon makes Turnstyles one of the most exciting live bands in the city now. Their sheer energy (and stamina) proves irresistible to most crowds. And soon they’ll be taking their patented sound across the ocean to Europe, right after they play their “Turnstyles Europe[an] Tour Sendoff Show” at Bar DKDC on Saturday, September 2nd, at 9 p.m. Catch these wonder twins before they go viral — if you can.
Nina Westervelt