album review: ‘clancy’ by twenty one pilots

There’s a part of me that felt deeply vindicated in the rollout of this album, and probably not for reasons folks will like.

See, I’ve long accepted that I’m a half-step outside of the twenty one pilots fandom, mostly because for as much this band can create lore that the Clique will endlessly pick apart and then expound upon, I’ve always operated on it being largely metaphorical and self-referential; the details are less important than the broad emotional scope. Because for as much as the iconography tries to create this veneer of mystery and dark complexity - see Trench and all of my messy frustrations with that project - I hear a lot of nerdy, way-too-self-aware wish fulfillment, from the fast rap to the overwrought bombast to every reference to their own music, it’s why I still think Blurryface is their best album. It’s also one of the big reasons I still really love Scaled & Icy to this day - a pop swerve that was way brighter and more chipper in discarding much of the angst, but leveraged rock solid pop fundamentals and some really savvy metatext to integrate the story…

And wouldn’t you know, in the lore catch-up video that the band released prior to this album, that metatextual interpretation was largely validated, which places Scaled & Icy in “continuity” alongside both Trench and Blurryface - and as someone who doesn’t really care for the lore but appreciates the thematic arc, this really worked for me! It did receive mixed reactions from fans - yes, they still has fans after Scaled & Icy, albeit fewer because Fueled By Ramen can’t effectively push a pop single to save their lives, and they had at least three on that album that should have worked - but honestly, that didn’t concern me as much as the shifts in personnel. Given Scaled & Icy was recorded during the pandemic, they only got spare production assistance, from Greg Kurstin, primary Blurryface collaborator Mike Elizondo, and Trench producer Paul Meany, the latter of who specifically worked on tracks calling back to Trench, and is the primary producer here. And given one of my issues with Trench is how dour and monochromatic it could be, this might lead to mixed results… but I did really like ‘Overcompensate’ as a single, and I had high hopes for this, so what did we get?

…well folks, this is a weird one, because I’ve been giving this a lot of attention and for as much as a lot of folks are citing this as a big return to form since Scaled & Icy, I cannot remotely agree, because Clancy feels like an album to ‘give people what they want… but once you start digging into the details, you regret it’. Superficially on a textural basis and tone it feels reminiscent of Trench… but with none of the immensity and grandiosity and the lore effectively thrown aside, as it seems like the songwriting is rooted more deeply in pop compositions structures and small-scale lyricism that reminds me more of Vessel than Blurryface, made all the more frustrating because the emotional growth from Scaled & Icy is also here, so it wants to be taken seriously, but the bigger question becomes ‘in what context’. It leads to an album where I get why some folks are finding resonance, but has left me colder than I was hoping - still good, but I’d struggle to say it’s among their best.

…albeit for different reasons that some parts of the fanbase, so here’s my exceedingly rare olive branch - and I can’t believe I’m doing this - to the Clique. Listen, we haven’t gotten along for over ten years, but I get the raw disappointment and frustration if you cared about the lore and universe-building on Trench, heard ‘Overcompensate’, and then listened to this album to effectively hear it consigned to bookending the project, with the ‘secret’ outro on ‘Paladin Strait’ where you hear Clancy meet Blurryface for a final confrontation. To me it makes sense as it effectively shows how all of that lore was largely symbolic and metaphorical of Tyler Joseph’s internal struggles, but if you were invested in that story or iconography and have heard it get thrown aside, where you’re in the Genius annotations trying desperately to connect the dots and reference the music videos to make it all make sense… yeah, that’s tough, especially when the band did so much cryptic shit over the course of multiple albums to try and get you to care. Is the lesson here to focus more on the underlying emotionality and themes over lore and easter eggs… yeah, probably, but I’m not going to blame the Clique for struggling there when a.) the effort has been sincere in engaging with the text for its own sake, b.) music and a lot of associated art around it tends to be more abstract than traditional narrative, and c.) this is a lesson that nerd culture, movie Twitter, comics Twitter, and the majority of the viewing/listening public needs to learn a lot faster.

So now that all of that’s out of the way, why isn’t it fully clicking for me? Well, let’s start with the content, because following Scaled & Icy, I was already primed to like the writing here: Tyler Joseph has gotten older, the timbre of his insecurity has changed, and while there are overlapping elements with past projects - struggles with depression, substance abuse, increasing annoyance and contempt for the music industry and his culpability playing into it, when you’re in your mid-30s and have a stable relationship and kids, the perspective shifts. And let’s be clear, that context was established on Scaled & Icy - it was deliberately focused on family connections, ducking out of the spotlight, where the climatic dark synths and choral vocals on ‘No Chances’ and the exhausted ache of ‘Redecorate’ signaled that because of the industry he chose, he’d be back on the road, for better and worse - and as early as ‘Backslide’ you can tell that Joseph was stung pretty hard by a lot of fans largely rejecting that album. And not gonna lie, I was really annoyed by him second-guessing ‘Saturday’ - one of the band’s best pop songs and one of my favourites of 2021 - because the fandom never bothered to grasp the larger thematic context of where that song made sense, especially as on an emotional level, going back to the darkness and insecurities of Trench is also a backslide even if he’s trying to ‘reclaim’ it, and brings out some of those old demons that he thought he left behind. Now in theory I’m not against going back to old territory - one of the best things Jason Isbell ever illuminated on The Nashville Sound in 2017 is that you can’t just slam the door on addiction or depression or those underlying insecurities, they often linger just out of sight, ready to resurface when times get dark… but I also really appreciate ‘Midwest Indigo’ coming right after ‘Backslide’, where the little things are causing him to spiral but with greater resources at his disposal there’s a better shot of getting through it. The instability and angst is still there, but it feels better managed, he now firmly knows that self-destruction is not the only way to paradise… which had me wishing there was a little more depth to these pictures, as they are familiar: the dissociations of ‘Routines In The Night’ and ‘Navigating’ feel like cycles we’ve seen, as does the relationship angst of the ukulele-driven ‘The Craving’ which just felt a bit flat for me - it’s no ‘Formidable’. And then there’s ‘Lavish’ taking the piss out of the cheap decadence of the music industry, and while everyone is rolling their eyes at the borderline nonsensical plastic extravagance of that second verse, to me it comes across as really lazy and regressive; Tyler Joseph has proven not to be above a bad anal reference tied to the music industry, but it’s playing to cheap stereotypes that reminds me of the conservative streak this band can have. But this is also what happens when on the next few songs, Joseph admits that for as much as he doesn’t want to go backwards, he feels like he’s reached the end of this road: commandeered a hot ride, drove until the engine died, all the progress is gone, and with the future coming fast, he’s got nothing in the tank. It’s one reason I really like ‘Oldies Station’, mostly because he’s now grappling with getting older and having to push through into unfamiliar territory, and necessarily returns to more personal framing - he’s a parent, he’s lost family, and given that Joseph has reportedly said this is directed at the audience, it’s probably the most direct critique of nostalgia for him and them alike. Of course, when you sell the album off of playing to that nostalgia to set up the bait and switch, you’re going to piss people off - Eminem has done this multiple times and looks to be setting it up again on his album this summer, and that’s another fanbase that never seems to get the message - but if this is what is required to finally confront everything head on, rebuild oneself to meet Blurryface and Nico because really thematically they’re one in the same, head on to take his best shot at those demons, I get why you do it. I also appreciate that on the closing track he admits he’s past the point of no return - you don’t get many more chances to recycle all of this iconography, especially given how pointed this critique of nostalgia is… although in that lore video, he admits that it might not be the last time, go figure.

But okay, if I’ve managed to do so much to peel into the details of the writing that I like, is there a deeper problem? Well, this is where we get into the execution and production and where I’m probably going to butt heads with the folks that were expecting the same sound palette as Trench and… well, mostly got it. It is darker, it is heavier and more ponderous, it doesn’t run as long as Trench but can feel long thanks to the choice of instrumental textures that lean more towards that dour greyscale than the vibrant melodies of Blurryface or Scaled & Icy; for me, it’s just not grabbing my ear as strongly, which is where I circle back to the discrepancy between tighter pop structures and production choices that don’t always pay them off. And I caught this early - after ‘Overcompensate’ sets a darker vibe, we get ‘Next Semester’ which is clearly trying for a jaunty, 2010s post-punk throwback with the bassline and rattling galloping lead melody and woos, but the electric ukulele rattle bleeds into a slurry accented by the pianos, with the momentum short-circuited by the slow ending and none of the verve punching through, which might fit for the chilly blips of ‘Backslide’ that’s generally catchy melodically but feels like it’s hovering in an odd, colourless middleground, dragging back Joseph’s overdubbed squawking, ‘Snap Back’ falls near this territory too. Thank God ‘Midwest Indigo’ has a really strong, bouncy melodic groove to make up for that hideous, gooey synth that opens up the track unsupported and thankfully is better blended by the later hooks - something seems off with a lot of the synth choices all over this album, come to think of it, where they either feel formless and weirdly canned, or blare in a fashion that draws attention to every awkward tone like across the opening of ‘Navigating’ or the bridge of ‘Oldies Station’, which thankfully like ‘Midwest Indigo’ manage to ramp up the groove enough to compensate. And then we get the attempts at elegance with the wheezy strings passages on ‘Vignette’ and ‘Lavish’ that really feel lacking in body… and you know, I’ve danced around this for about ten years now and it only feels more obvious with pop frameworks against Trench-textures, the compression on the vocal leads is starting to get really distracting; the problem is not that it’s there - I’ve given twenty one pilots a pass on this before, especially their pop stuff - but alongside a palette that would demand a little more organic texture, it comes across as overprocessed. It’s balanced out better with the gentle hazy acoustics on ‘Oldies Station’ that tilt into psychedelia, similar to how ‘Paladin Strait’ bends its acoustic line into a very 60s progressive melody, and it reminds me of the Elton John elements that drifted in ‘Mulberry Street’ - tastes of more eclectic influences that would be cool to hear from twenty one pilots… if they weren’t fighting production that seemed designed to leech any colour from the palette, so many of these songs should hit harder than they do but the production isn’t doing them any favours.

But then again, that’s not surprising - that was my biggest complaint with Trench, I know I’m in the minority with it, and while I found a decent number of great songs here, Clancy feels like an intensely compromised album, a course correction back towards what got them critical acclaim, but also admonishing the audience for expecting it by intentionally playing to similar themes; the only reason it doesn’t feel more bitter is because Joseph has grown up enough to value more important things, and I think he’s hoping everyone else does as well. If only the tonal execution of this album didn’t feel at odds with itself, I’d probably like this a lot more, and it honestly makes it hard to recommend even as a good album; a lot of albums so reliant on metatext past and present tend to be a tough sell. And if you’re just here for strong hooks or potent bangers… I dunno, twenty one pilots has done this better on previous projects, and they seem to know it, returning to this well was going to have diminishing returns! As a whole, I do think it’s mostly good, if you’re curious it’s worth a listen… but if this is the end of this particular framing and arc of this story, we might all be better for it.