Clancy

This album is supremely disappointing. The first single (and opening track) Overcompensate seems to promise an explosive and exciting record, with fiery album art to match. It's hard not to feel betrayed when listening through it however, as much of the runtime is rather tame and mellow. There is next to nothing in this tracklist that even resembles the energy of Overcompensate or Backslide, and there is ultimately no cohesion or sense of any creative vision to the project. I felt genuinely upset when I reached track 12 (At The Risk of Feeling Dumb) and realized that this was the penultimate track of the record. I had listened through nearly the entire album, and yet felt like I still waiting for it to get started. I had been led to believe this would be an exciting adventure, and a late-album track would otherwise serve as a climax sounds more like a rejected radio single, topping off some half hour of filler tunes.

It's not a bad album, there are only a few songs here that I would actively label as bad (tracks 2, 9, 12, 13) but most are either a mixed bag of good and bad ideas, or generally forgettable. Some tracks like Routines In The Night are held back by lazy lyrics and shallow metaphor, while others are built entirely out of these flaws, such as Paladin Strait. Of course, that's not all the closing track has going for it, as a third of its runtime is consumed by near-silence, and an ultimate lore dump that involves rattling off names of various characters, with no effort at all being put toward subtlety or storytelling. It feels especially insulting given that this is nearly the only taste we get of the Lore, the return to Trench, or the Clancy character that the album itself is named after.

All this being said, I think it's Twenty One Pilots' best album.

I absolutely love both Overcompensate and Backslide, and only wish I could hear more music of this caliber from the band. What a letdown.