Posted: 1st June, 2026 by The Alt Editing Staff
The Alternative is ad-free and 100% supported by our readers. If you’d like to help us produce more content and promote more great new music, please consider donating to our Patreon page, which also allows you to receive sweet perks like free albums and The Alternative merch. And if you want The Alternative delivered straight to your inbox every month, sign up for our free newsletter. Either way, thanks for reading!
Last year, I had the privilege of seeing Turnover play their widely beloved emo/dream pop (dreamo?) classic Peripheral Vision in full for its 10th anniversary at The Fillmore in Philly with my sister and her husband, the people who got me into the band in the first place. I had already seen the band twice by that point, but that was the best they’d ever sounded. They were able to breathe new life into these songs and make them sound refreshing with a newfound sense of urgency, giving them the same care and craft that they gave on record. That same sense of urgency carried over to the new songs they had played that night: “Nightjar” and “Little Bees Don’t Bite,” then known as “New One” and “New Too” respectively. After such a lull in their career creatively, it felt like a breath of fresh air to hear the band finally embrace what their fans love about them; these were the best Turnover songs I’ve heard in a decade, and I was confident that they had finally recorded a truly great album again. Now Down on Earth is here, and it is indeed the best Turnover album since Peripheral Vision. The band has surpassed my expectations, and then some.
Leading up to this release, I had a very complicated relationship with Turnover’s music. I understand Peripheral Vision is this massive behemoth of an album to follow up, but the way I see it, Turnover had two easy routes to take—expand on Peripheral Vision’s atmospherics and dream popside and drop emo entirely without sacrificing what was special about their music, or play it safe and get lighter and lighter until the music loses its luster. They seemed to go with the former decision when they came out with the great Humblest Pleasures single, but afterward they ultimately took the latter path. I think Good Nature is a worthy enough followup, maintaining the dreaminess of Peripheral Vision with a happier twist that remained engaging. But that was, at the time, their last genuinely great album. Usually, when a band diversifies their sound, it’s in a way that works for them. In Turnover’s case, none of the changes suited their sound. Altogether had some bangers, but it’s generally a dreary slogfest, and Myself in the Way is their most boring album, offering only lethargic, dazed-out dance songs. Experimenting with your music doesn’t always yield the best results, and the band needed to do it in a way that felt natural.
Down on Earth isn’t necessarily Peripheral Vision 2; it’s more like the follow-up Peripheral Vision never got. There’s a type of moodiness that looms over both records, but what Down on Earth does is expand on Turnover’s influences like Cocteau Twins, Dinosaur Jr and Beach House, giving them an edge without resorting back to emo sentimentality either. They hit the studio with their longtime front-of-house engineer Zac Montez and culled songs together from jammy improvisations. “Maybe reminiscing around the anniversary seeped into our subconscious,” said singer Austin Getz. “But at its core Down on Earth was the experience of just seeing what happened when we played together, without holding onto a tight idea of what we wanted it to be.” The result is a dreamy indie rock album that actually rocks, a department Turnover had been lacking in and have gotten back into gracefully.
“Wheelie for No One” lets you know right off the gate that this side of Turnover is back, ushering in the album with entrancing guitar tremolo effects and Getz’s indecipherable, completely processed voice. His vocals here is a choice that I can imagine some fans not being on board with, but I honestly think it works for the hypnotic vibe the song provides. We then have the singles: “Nightjar” is a blissfully melancholy slice of dream pop that sounds just as gorgeous as when I first heard it live, and “I See You and Realize” is a Smiths-esque love song with Getz adapting a lower register that more than a little reminds me of Morrissey. Then come the two best songs on Down on Earth, “My Hand Is a Curtain” and “I’m Up, I’m Up.” The former finds Getz sounding the most lost and forlorn he’s been since anything on Peripheral Vision, lamenting how abandoned he feels being separated from someone as he stares at the stars trying to cope with the weight of this heartbreak while the earth keeps spinning. But then on “I’m Up, I’m Up,” he’s boldly become one with the stars, proclaiming, “Yeah, I’m still dumb / Yeah, I am a genius / Giant step my way to the moon,” while the band puts on a backdrop that evokes ‘90s indie rock at its prime. The song ends with a beautifully weird harmonica solo, a much welcome interjection in its haze. There’s a consistent throughline of celestial imagery in these songs that very cleverly supplements Getz’s reflections on loss and loneliness. It should be worth pointing out that Getz sings differently on each of the first five songs on Down on Earth, which works perfectly for this album’s direction. This is how you diversify your sound.
When “Pieces” fades in, it sounds like a song from Altogether given more oomph with a driving backbeat and a catchier melody—major improvements. “Little Bees Don’t Bite” kicks in and it’s the most overt shoegaze song Turnover have made yet. Peripheral Vision gets invoked a lot in conversations about punk bands going shoegaze, but it is really just dream pop and only shares a few elements with shoegaze. On this song, however, Turnover embraces shoegaze wholeheartedly in Getz’s angelic vocals and the gliding, cascading guitars reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. “Ultrasensitive” and “Off into the Lonesome Sky” both offer some of the band’s most incredible shimmering guitar melodies, with Getz reflecting on love in a non-cheesy actually beautiful way that doesn’t hold the record back. Closer “Spade Head” opens with faster drums against an atmospheric background, echoing a song like “New Scream” or “Take My Head” from Peripheral Vision before catapulting straight into space. Getz expands his voice once more into a higher register as he hazily sings, “I hear the gnashing / Drawn at the gates of heaven.” You can hear the confidence in the band as the song finishes, like they realize that they sound like themselves again and have finally reached the stage of their career they’ve been trying to get to for over a decade.
Down on Earth is overall a really fantastic Turnover album, and that’s something I’ve been wanting to say again for years. The band sounds reenergized and rejuvenated charting new territory and without coming across as having a return to form, the lackadaisical and fluorescent melodies are some of the best the band has ever crafted (Nick Rayfield has seriously come into his own as a guitarist here) and Getz manages to balance his happiness and hardships in a genuinely effective way where you really feel for him on both topics. And most importantly, it’s awesome to hear the band having fun again throughout these songs. This is an album they needed as much as their fans do, and it’s exciting to hear them evolve in a direction that not only didn’t require them to copy their past but they can benefit from beautifully. The Turnover I’ve waited to come for a decade is finally here.
Disappointing / Average / Good / Great / Phenomenal
Down on Earth is out now.
––
Matthew D’iorio | @loveisworry14