A couple weeks ago, my very favorite band, twenty one pilots (or TØP), released their new album. It’s called Breach, and it’s undoubtedly one of their best albums yet. It’s given me a lot to think about (and write about, too!), which is why I’ve decided to temporarily hijack my own publication and review this album for the next several posts. A new one will hopefully be out each week, as I have each post outlined to some extent, but you never know what might happen with my schedule. But in the unlikely event that all goes as planned, this series will end up being seven or eight posts long1, and will probably wrap up late November or early December.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to announce the, and also to give a little preview of what’s coming with an overall review of the album as a whole before I break down every song individually.
Fairly Brief Album Review
I had a whole spiel written out about this album, but a lot of it was rambling so I decided to cut it out. So here’s another spiel that I didn’t intend to be this long but I had fun writing it!
Structurally, this album is actually pretty similar to Blurryface—however, Breach and Blurryface serve different purposes and follow entirely different storylines. The point of the former album begins in “Heavydirtysoul,” the first song on the album. “Can you save my heavydirtysoul?” asks the chorus. Then, over the course of the next dozen or so tracks (besides, of course, outliers like “Tear in My Heart”), the protagonist2 tries to go it alone. What’s the outcome? We end up in the same place we were at the beginning: a desperate plea for help, this time in the form “I’m a goner/…I wanna be known by you.”
What about Breach? Isn’t it all over in the beginning, with “City Walls”? Clancy stays stuck in the cycle, becoming a Bishop, the very thing he tried so hard to defeat. That’s the ending, and while it’s not a good one, at least we can try again.
But that’s still not a good ending. “Intentions” basically just says “yeah, you’re gonna fail, but just keep trying; keep up those good intentions.” And it would be pretty bad if there wasn’t an entire album containing these songs—and the situation would be really dire if “Drag Path” didn’t exist. But we’ll get to that later.
If you really listen to the lyrics of Blurryface, in particular “Not Today,” you’ll realize that this album gets darker with every song (no matter how catchy “Not Today” is). I’m pleased to report that Breach, on the other hand, gets almost progressively more hopeful. “Tally” is, essentially, Breach’s version of “Not Today.” The lyrics express so much guilt (“You want a tally, I lost the count/You wanna love me, I’ll let you down”), confronted by so much mercy (“Still now, you believe in me somehow/…Just figured you were keepin’ track of every time.”)3
Why am I comparing “Not Today” to “Tally”? I’ll admit that the lyrics aren’t necessarily similar, but think about “Not Today” as it leads into “Goner.” “Not Today” is the dark place where surrender happens; “Tally” is the awe and comfort that segues beautifully into “Drag Path.”
Order of Review
So that was kind of a sampling of how I’m thinking about these topics. Now, here’s how things are (70% likely) going to play out.4
The next post you’ll see from me is my review of “The Contract,” because even though it’s the fifth song on the album, it’s about stuff that happens right before “City Walls.”
“City Walls” is what I’ll be reviewing next, together with “Intentions.” These are the bookends of the album (according to some, that is). They go together as one possible ending of the Dema storyline. I’ll go through the meaning of the songs and what “Intentions” means for “City Walls” (and vice-versa). It’s going to be a fun time.
Next, I’ll review three songs for the price of one: “RAWFEAR,” “Garbage,” and “Drum Show.” I’m doing this because these three songs go together in terms of theme and target audience, and they happen to be neighbors in the tracklisting too.
My review of “Downstairs” is going to be basically one long rant, and I am so looking forward to it. It’s a very good song. You should go listen to it.
I’m not planning on reviewing “Robot Voices,” if only because it’s one that I just don’t understand.5 Besides that, it makes more sense to me to follow up a review of “Downstairs” with one of “Center Mass” (which is, I daresay, one of the most brilliant TØP songs ever). These two songs go very well together, and if you disagree, maybe I can convince you ;)
I have to do “One Way” and “Days Lie Dormant” together, for obvious reasons, even if it does feel like quite a vibe change. This will be a more chill review (probably) as these songs are lighter and more simple—at least, as simple as a TØP song ever is.
I’m super excited about my “Tally” review, but after that I’m not done. I have to talk about “Drag Path” and the finality it brings to that seemingly impossible-to-break cycle.
Summing Up
These are only my hopes and dreams for what I would like to see happen, but as I said before, you never know.
But Breach far exceeded my expectations (in many areas), and I’m looking forward to properly going over what makes it so good.
I hope you join me! But if this isn’t your cup of tea, that’s fine. I’m writing about what I want to, because this interests me.
Welcome to Trench, frens |-/
Or I might compress the series to maybe six, seven posts (PLEASE DON’T BURN ME AT THE STAKE YOU CHOSE TO READ THE FOOTNOTE)
Who is this? Is it Tyler Joseph? Is it Clancy? Actually, it’s you. TØP will often make their lyrics intentionally vague and ambiguous because, as with any good work of art, their goal is that it will make people think. This is why Tyler Joseph always says “We’re twenty one pilots, and so are you.”
Psalm 103:8-12
Is there grammar in this sentence? I don’t know and I don’t really care, my two braincells are overworked as it is.
I’ve speculated that it’s about AI but I haven’t actually come to any conclusions on this.