Turnover

Turnover had come full circle. In 2022, Myself In The Way concluded a prolific streak during which Turnover became known for constantly pushing the limits of their sound and songwriting. They then underwent the longest wait between albums of their career, resulting in a heap of new ideas, fragments, snapshots of nearly a half decade of major life changes. The band — brothers Austin and Casey Getz, Danny Dempsey, and Nick Rayfield — gathered and jammed ideas out together, working songs into existence in the room. The process culminated in Down On Earth, their sixth LP and perhaps the most quintessentially Turnover album they have ever made. 

Down On Earth is a line in the sand. Across 2025, Turnover filled hallowed venues like Red Rocks and the Greek Theatre, playing to the biggest crowds of their career while celebrating the 10th anniversary of their seminal 2015 album Peripheral Vision. This was the quartet revisiting what was, essentially, the birth of the band as many know it. Going back to their roots closed the book on a 10-year arc. As fans may have noticed from new songs debuted onstage, the album waiting in the wings would find Turnover reclaiming some core ethos. Down On Earth became a kaleidoscopic portrait of musicians on the exit ramp of young adulthood, increasingly sure of
themselves and the art they wanted to make. Forever DIY in spirit, they decided to release the
album on their own. 

In their earliest days, Turnover were a punk band hailing from Virginia Beach. After cutting their teeth in hardcore scenes, they joined generational peers like Title Fight and Balance And Composure in chasing new horizons, restlessly exploring other genres throughout their first decade as a band. The pop-tinged punk of 2013’s Magnolia was only a prologue before the pivotal breakthrough on Peripheral Vision. From there to 2017’s Good Nature, Turnover leaned into alternative rock, incorporating elements of dream-pop, grunge, and new wave before continuing to forge ahead into adventures in dance, psychedelia, and jazz across 2019’s Altogether and 2022’s Myself In The Way. Far from the dreaded “return to form” album, Down On Earth is evolution by way of synthesis — echoing aesthetics they’ve played with but delivered with a musical acumen sharpened over 10 years of experimentation and growing pains. 

“We never had conversations about the kind of record we should make,” Austin says now. “Maybe reminiscing around the anniversary seeped into our subconscious. But at its core Down On Earth was the experience of just seeing what happened when we played together, without holding on to a tight idea of what we wanted it to be.” 

Originally, Austin wrote almost everything for Turnover, with the process becoming more and more collaborative with each subsequent album. This time, the band entered the studio with less refined demos, excited to explore snippets of song ideas together. Accordingly, they also switched up their recording practices, hiring their longtime front-of-house engineer Zac Montez as producer. “A lot of people say Turnover sounds different live,” Dempsey explains. “We thought Zac would know how to achieve that sound in the studio.” Once more, it was a prompt to move forward by capturing the true essence of the band. 

Similar to the open, low-pressure atmosphere of letting Down On Earth reveal it to themselves musically, Turnover also figured out the themes and lyrics in real time. Working off a “cut up” approach used on the last several albums, Austin followed a stream of consciousness that excavated ideas and images that had stuck with him in the interim since Myself In The Way. To his surprise, Down On Earth emerged as an album balancing love songs with reflections on loss and death and loneliness. Contrary to past Turnover releases, Down On Earth was less a direct depiction of anything the members themselves were experiencing, with Austin considering himself more of a director than narrator or main character. Like everything else on the album, this unlocked a different sense of creative freedom. “I found myself asking why did I end up building this puzzle from these pieces,” Austin says. 

From the warped tremolo guitar and processed vocals of opener “Wheelie For No One,” Down On Earth announces itself as an album that contrasts bleary psychedelia and cosmic imagery with sharp compositions chiseled from in-studio improvisation. Often favoring a glimmering, nocturnal sound, Down On Earth is shot through with visions of the afterlife. “Nightjar” originated as a breakup song but blossomed into something else once Austin found its central image, a bird associated with the underworld in various folkloric traditions. With the jangly propulsion of “I’m Up, I’m Up” the band inverts a similar tension into something wry, cocky: “Yeah I am still dumb/ Yeah I am a genius/ Giant step my way to the moon/ Ready to get huge.” Sometimes the proverbial heavens are beautiful, a paradise reached through love in “I See You And Realize,” and other times oblivion and transcendence mingle. On closer “Spade Head,” the band soars off moonlit guitars as Austin becomes a neutron star, a billion tons, an infinite embrace. 

In those final moments, you can hear a hard-won acceptance that gave Turnover the freedom they felt throughout Down On Earth. After the Peripheral Vision tour, it was clear that a band that never quite belonged in any one scene had built their own, had a fanbase willing to follow them wherever their instincts led. “We don’t feel like there’s any one home for us anymore, but there are so many people who care about the band the way we do,” Danny says. “Maybe we don’t fit in any one place, but we fit with ourselves. This album is about having the confidence to know we can do what we want, and do it our way.”

Boiler Plate Bio:

Turnover reached an inflection point following 2022’s Myself In The Way, following a prolific era defined by constant innovation and the expansion of their sound. After their longest gap between releases, the band—Austin and Casey Getz, Danny Dempsey, and Nick Rayfield—reunited to write collaboratively, shaping songs through in-room improvisation. The result is Down On Earth, their sixth album and a defining statement that simultaneously
embraces their roots and the lessons of a decade-spanning career. 

Originally a Virginia Beach punk band, Turnover spent years expanding their sound—from the pop-punk of Magnolia to the dreamlike textures of Peripheral Vision and Good Nature, and later into experimental territory across Altogether and Myself In The Way. Down On Earth is evolution by way of synthesis — echoing aesthetics they’ve played with but delivered with a musical acumen sharpened over 10 years of experimentation and growing pains. 

With longtime front-of-house engineer Zac Montez producing, the band aimed to capture their live energy in the studio. Lyrically, the album emerged organically, blending love, loss, and existential reflection through a stream-of-consciousness approach. The result is a dynamic, atmospheric record that balances psychedelia with sharp songwriting—ultimately affirming Turnover’s identity as a band unconstrained by genre, but grounded in their own creative vision.