Illustration by Jordan Awan

“Out of Rage,” by the Maryland band Turnstile, nominally cops to its echoes of Zack de la Rocha and Tom Morello’s leftist metal—the song could be a Trump dig if you squint just so. “You blow a lot of smoke, scared to move,” the vocalist Brendan Yates shout-raps over popping snares and slow-swung bass guitar, which hammer with a blacksmith’s touch. “Two cents to impress, with a closed-mind view.”

Throughout Turnstile’s 2015 album, “Nonstop Feeling,” Yates and his cohort propose a more open-minded stance, cunningly blurring party lines. The record flips the strict fundamentalism of its genre, with stomping rap drums, Red Hot hooks, and wilting alt interludes, embracing turn-of-the-century hybrid rock styles that many punks of a similar age have left stuffed under childhood beds. “I found Turnstile through hip-hop, which really is a testament to their influence in shifting music and culture,” Cody Verdecias, the A. & R. who signed the band to the metal label Roadrunner this spring, said recently. “Anyone can rebel against their parents, anyone can rebel against society, but rebelling against your peers is the hardest thing to do,” the drummer Daniel Fang told Thrasher over the summer.

Yates, Fang, Brady Ebert, and Franz Lyons formed Turnstile in Baltimore, in 2010, carving out time from their other bands to release singles and tour. Their melodic riffs, bright-eyed spirit, and riotous sets stood out, and the group gained an enthusiastic following in tight-webbed hardcore scenes across the country. The music video for “Drop,” from 2014, showcases the band’s loud and fast brand of optimism—filmed in black-and-white and hand-painted, frame by frame, in shades of turquoise, goldenrod, and salmon, the clip features a toothless ten-year-old flashing peace signs, and at least one puppy. It captures hardcore’s richest paradox: that angry music can be happy, and that venting wrath responsibly clears the mind for better use. “Human emotion is unrelenting,” Yates told Substream last year. “The songs are about ways of adjusting to emotion.”

These principles of clear thinking and clean living underlie Turnstile’s scene, which creates space for well-considered chaos; at the band’s Oct. 27 stop at Sunnyvale, with the beloved outfits Angel Du$t, Fury, Krimewatch, and Big Bite, there will be rage to spare, and to share. ♦