2015: Against all odds, the nerdy class black sheep makes a friend. The attempt at trust doesn\u2019t go unpunished. The friend journeys down the alt-right pipeline, betraying him. Meanwhile, as a hopeless romantic, the black sheep continuously embarrasses himself in delusionships everyone knows are a lost cause except him. He ends the chapter alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2020: Somehow, the dorky ugly duckling finds a new friend. His \u2018partner-in-crime\u2019 betrays him as well, alleging he gave him n-word passes\u2014\u2014throwing the duckling under the bus (who was the only emergency contingency in sight). Meanwhile, still a hopeless romantic, the duckling inadvertently pushes away the one person with enough patience for him. He ends the chapter alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2025: the same pretentious suburban Sisyphus continues pushing his rock up the mountain, but this is definitely the furthest I – *sorry* – he<\/em> has ever gotten, successfully failing upwards through life. While the story has gotten more complicated, it\u2019s still the same equation, just with different variables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My mom keeps asking me why I don\u2019t like visiting home. My leading theory: my addiction to overstimulation leaves the silence of the Akron suburbs too boring to return to without good reason. At home, not only does it feel like I\u2019m away from the story\u2019s A-plot, but it\u2019s also a reminder that I can\u2019t run away from my problems, because the source always catches up with me: myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t want my family to think it\u2019s their fault that my hometown isn\u2019t a happy place. For the sake of clarity: it\u2019s not that home is an unhappy place. It just isn\u2019t a happy place either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like this drawn-out intro to an emo pop album review, Twenty One Pilots\u2019 2025 album is a breach of trust. The newest offering from \u2018local\u2019 band Twenty One Pilots was heralded as the ultimate Breach <\/em>in the cycle that their 10-year dystopian fantasy saga has been structured around. However, when you take the bait, you find it\u2019s a full circle moment sonically and narratively, the protagonist Clancy catches up with himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bandmates Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun don\u2019t waste time making this point. When watching the bittersweet epilogue music video<\/a> for album opener\/saga finale \u201cCity Walls\u201d, you can either view it as Diogenes<\/a> tragically plummeting all the way back to Ground Zero or an ode to the faith at the basis of incremental change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the band\u2019s career, they\u2019ve always beat around the bush\u2014and the bush being that they are a Christian Rock band. When zealots say they feel the presence of God during the live music at mass, they mean they just like the way the bass is hitting or the way the drums are getting bruised. The way people talk about megachurches, ministries, and One Direction concerts sound the same. Twenty One Pilots plays with both sides of the coin of awe. They don\u2019t necessarily hide it, but the reluctance to namedrop Christ and their tendency to swap lead guitars with throbbing basses, somber pianos, and kitschy ukuleles obscures their roots. (Tyler Joseph is to non-Hawaiian ukulele players what Nick Cheo is to bedroom DJs). Twenty One Pilots is definitively rock but not quite guitar music. Twenty One Pilots have always danced in this ambiguity. With Breach, <\/em>they are finally openly LIFETEEN-coded\u2014most evident on tracks like \u201cGarbage\u201d and \u201cCity Walls\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n