Twenty One Pilots is a band best defined, firstly, by their nostalgia factor for those who listened to their melodramatic whining vocals and corny Eminem-style rapping that resonated with many weird, alternative and emo youth in the 2010s.
There is also a ton of fictional lore surrounding the band and their album rollouts. It officially started with 2015’s massively popular record “Blurryface,” continued with 2018’s heavier and critically lauded “Trench” and then dropped the ball for many with 2021’s “Scaled and Icy.” Those who didn’t follow the Twenty One Pilots lore were alienated by the generic-sounding indie pop sound and didn’t get the deeper meaning from just a surface-level listen. However, 2024’s “Clancy” ushered in a return to form and now the band is finally letting the decade-long storyline end with Sept. 12’s “Breach.”
This review will focus on the album from a surface-level listen, but will also briefly delve into the Twenty One Pilots lore.
The album starts with the five-minute “City Walls,” which is reminiscent of “Trench” at first with its heavy bass and guitar. The only thing keeping it from being too similar to that era was the poppy “oh’s” that ruin the heaviness of the sonic profile. Luckily, frontman Tyler Joseph’s rapping ends that. His rapping has significantly improved over the years in both flow and lyric choice and it no longer feels as corny or tacked on as it used to. The woodwind instruments woven into the mix make the song feel more distinct too.
“RAWFEAR” is certainly an earworm, despite the pertinent and borderline morbid lyrics about how fear is the ultimate motivator for change and action. The chorus, “Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis / Life is just forever nipping heels, never slowing down” spells this out. A clever line that flips the proverb that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is, “You know what kills me? Not getting stronger.” Other great lyrics are the dismal symbol of emotional abuse “I wish her parents would stop yelling” and the drug addiction metaphor on how to deal with suffering: “It is not pass or fail, but a poisonous progression / Try to micro-dose to immunity but you’ll never, ever get it.” Also, this time, the “ooh’s” and “aah’s” are way more fitting than the previous song with the different instrumentation.
Promotional single “Drum Show” puts not only drummer Josh Dun’s drumming expertise on full display, but also his first vocal contributions in the history of the band. This also shows the heavier side of Twenty One Pilots’ sound as explored by “Trench.”
“Garbage” unfortunately seems to be a very undercooked and filler song sonically, especially comparatively speaking. However, the depictions of negative self-image and co-dependency are important ones that need to be talked about more.
“The Contract” starts off with a great mixture of drums and piano and then includes a killer synth line that sounds like something you’d probably hear on rhythm-platformer game “Geometry Dash” considering the amount of electronic music on there. The emotive autotuned and chopped vocals on the chorus work to this song’s advantage.
Furthermore, the themes of theoretical psychosis-induced paranoia and insomnia, with lines like “I check the doors, check the windows, and pull the blinds / I check the clock, wondering what he’ll pull this time / I have a feeling that necromancer’s outside / And I’m just tryna stay quiet” would likely be more impactful if you knew the lore behind the song, album and band, but it does have correlations to “Clancy’s” insomnia anthem “Routines in the Night.” “The Contract” is one of the best songs on the entire album and even their entire discography.
“Downstairs” is a bit too long for its own good, though it has a beautiful bridge and outro that don’t seem to correlate with the rest of the song from a surface-level view. However, they are reminiscent of alternative rock and metal band Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” especially with the lyrics “Oh, what have I become?” and “You can have all I’ve made and all I’ve ever known.”Regardless, it’s an enjoyable listen. Tyler Joseph’s screaming is so cathartic and beautiful to hear.
“Cottonwood” is a heartwrenching tribute to Tyler Joseph’s late grandfather and how he’s processing the grieving process. The bridge’s repeated lyric of “You tore me up more than you know” is like a punch in the heart. The only problem with this song is that it’s not sequenced satisfyingly nor thematically with the other songs. “Cottonwood” would be best near the end of the album personally speaking.
“Days Lie Dormant” is an unconventional love song in the sense that it focuses not on the love itself, but rather the longing for the one you love not physically being there with you. Even without the beautiful lyrics, the pop rock instrumentation is super addicting.
The final song, “Intentions,” in the form of a melancholy ballad reminiscent of alternative rock band Radiohead, has an extremely important message: the first step to breaking cycles and moving on to the future is having an intention to do better, to be better. We need to realize that we may make errors, but we’re so much more than them. We have the ability to learn from our mistakes and grow from who we used to be.
Twenty One Pilots was an integral part of my childhood. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to fit in with the emo kids at my middle school. But more than that, this band grew up with us and matured into a genuinely flourishing musical sound. What will come next? I’m just glad that this band was able to tell a story that means a lot to quite a few people.
Rating: 3.75/5
Featured photo credit: @twentyonepilots
if ur gonna write an article at least go over the whole album without rating it something low like what? u missed out on 4 songs which are one way, tally, center mass and robot voices.. how do u completely miss that? and also in drum show, Josh Has done vocals for Paladin strait and Stressed out, so it is not technically his first vocals and cottonwood is fine where it is since every song is not in any order because this whole album is a combination of all of their discography. As someone who grew up on them, Maybe next time get some facts right and also listen to the whole album cause clearly you didn’t smh
Absolutely!! And literally what’s the point of that scathing first paragraph? It has nothing to do with the album.
i totally agree! It seems very backhanded and passive aggressive for someone who said they grew up listening to twenty one pilots. My bf first saw this article and was like you gotta see this cause he knew it would piss me off haha but as someone who did grow up listening to tøp and still do till this day.. The whole discography is amazing and breach is just a whole mixture of all of it and it’s so good!!! Fuck this article! <3
My original reply was longer but I’ll say this: my shorter song reviews got cut by my editor to my dismay and I would have covered all of the songs if I could have. I wrote that first paragraph not to be “scathing” or “passive aggressive” but to poke fun at the origins of TOP and make a tribute to a band I adored when I was younger. When you write one of these articles, you need to give context and that came natural. I couldn’t have talked about my middle school years lipsyncing to TOP songs on musical.ly but trust me when I say I would have if I could. It was a silly joking way to start off the article, not an attack on TOP fans. I listened to Breach multiple times and enjoyed it as well as the rest of TOP’s discography again (including Regional at Best) and loved it for the most part. I genuinely did not know about Josh’s previous vocals but that was a careless mistake on my part. Thank you for the hate comments though <33 People like you make the world more interesting.
Also, I don’t view being “weird” as a bad thing as an (extremely) weird person. That was me being self-deprecating and a comic. I wrote an article all about how being weird isn’t a bad thing. I get how that could offend some people who haven’t embraced weirdness as a positive, though. My criticisms for the album weren’t out of malice at all but to be constructive. Art is never ever truly finished but only abandoned. Keep listening to TOP and enjoying music!! Their music is not only nostalgic but genuinely good (especially for mainstream) for the most part. Sorry for pissing you off.