EnemyOfHamline

I get the disappointment those who had heard the Digital Remains Version felt hearing their masterpiece tampered with, but the nice thing about music is it doesn’t vanish when new music is released. This “standard” version still holds its weight, especially without the context of a more superior version. Don’t pretend that you would have hated this version without the context of Digital Remains.

The difference in ratings between the clikkie diehards who sees this as the most pure Twenty One Pilots album (an opinion which I wholeheartedly agree with) and the reactionaries of 2016 who heard “Stressed Out” one too many times on the radio and subsequently assumed anything the band ever produced was corporate slop (no shade to Stressed Out) seem to cancel each other out.

This is a perfectly respectable album on its own, which any non-fan would be able to tolerate without prior ... read more

If this is divorced dad rock, then I am siding with this hypothetical divorced dad in the custody battle.

Sure, it’s a bit telling retroactively that Shinedown was poised to pivot toward least-common-denominator mainstream rock, but this alone was the perfect follow-up to Sound of Madness (which given the direction late-2000s bands went after hitting the mainstream, is a true accomplishment)

It all cycles back here, doesn’t it?

I don’t think anyone could’ve expected this staple of the 2010s mainstream (for better or worse) to eventually become the hidden opening novel for the band’s own ten-year lore scavenger hunt. It’s been crazy growing up alongside the story panning out, over a significant portion of which I had no idea this group was worth listening to.

(If this review doesn’t make it clear, I am very much a converted clikkie)