Turnover: The Next Big Thing in Pop Punk

By Spence Blazak

This article was featured in September 27, 2012 Edition of the Daily Targum. I fixed it up a little bit for the blogosphere.....Enjoy!

One of music’s many great powers is the association it can hold with memory. People hear “I’ll Be There for You” by The Rembrandts and are brought back to watching Friends in the early 2000’s, and many people still can’t listen to “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys because of all the past loves it dredges up in their memory. Then there is music that does something even more, and that is where Turnover comes in.

            

Turnover’s music is, as Kobe Bryant would say “a different animal, but the same beast.” Upon first listen, their song “Sasha” will bring you back to those high school days of smoking cigarettes in the Krauszer’s parking lot and talking about how your parents don’t “get” you, as well as reminding you of the girl you confessed your love for while the song was playing. This is the point where you realize, “I’ve never heard this song before….” It brings up feelings of nostalgia where there never were any before. That’s powerful song writing, especially for a band of kids under 20.

            

Turnover hails from Virginia Beach, Virginia and was incepted in 2009. The band members’ ages range from 18-20, and this past spring, pictures were put on their Facebook page of the younger ones graduating. So far, they have released a self-titled 5-song EP as well as a split EP with the band Citizen, and have yet to give their fans a subpar song.

            

The band’s sound is pop punk for people who don’t like pop punk. It consists of guitar riffs and chord progressions that sound like more than just rhythmic structure (which can sometimes happen in the pop punk genre), as well as vocals that take themself seriously, lacking the usual pop punk whine.

            

The lyrics are passionate and filled with the vigor and feeling that one wants from the genre. In “Solitude”, one of their two singers yells, “Tired of driving through the night/Stinging eyes and my knuckles clenched to white.” Filled with empathetic yearning and accessible pain, the mood continues on “Sasha”: “I thought you meant it when you said forever/ I guess that was a lie/ I still get choked up when I think of you/ It happens all the time.”

            

The band’s Facebook page has been hinting at “something big” coming along soon, which, for Turnover faithful, hopefully means that a full length LP is soon on the horizon. Only time will tell, and you can keep tabs on the band on Facebook, on Twitter @turnoverva, and turnoverva.tumblr.com. Make sure you remember the name Turnover, because they are about to shake up the scene.