When Twenty One Pilots broke through in the mid 2010s, their faith-based soul-searching music collided with audiences yearning for honest lyrics, angsty release, and, honestly, rad drumbeats.
The duo, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, quickly crushed chart records and achieved commercial success of which only The Beatles and Elvis Presley are comparable company.
Not unlike Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar, a new Twenty One Pilots’ album demands repeat listens. That’s especially true for fervent fans, who want to uncover clues and unearth connected meaning across the band’s previous work.
And indeed, we do find connection. Previous albums share a complex and winding narrative rooted in the duo’s personal struggles with mental illness, as well as navigating more metaphorical demons. Clancy, the main character throughout much of Twenty One Pilots’ work, serves as a stand-in for Tyler Joseph as he attempts to defeat his insecurities and overcome personal despair.
At times, the lyrics go beyond dense and trend towards impenetrable. But maybe that’s fitting, given the band’s repeated attempts to wrap their arms around slippery topics such as depression, anxiety, and loss of faith. Anyone who’s struggled with similar situations knows there’s a level of impenetrability at play.
Joseph and Dun advertise Breach as the conclusion to their ongoing narrative featuring Clancy. Whether or not this latest installment truly is their last with the character, this collection of songs carries bold statements about the pervading war between hope and despair. It’s a battle Twenty One Pilots know they’re not done fighting, and they’re hoping anyone who listens won’t give up either.
Album opener “City Walls” comes complete with a 10-minute long music video with enough special effects to make a Matrix movie look underdeveloped. The song concludes a decade-long narrative involving the character Clancy and his battle with a semi-religious cult: He faces the choice to fall prey to predatorial beliefs or stay rooted in faith.
Twenty One Pilots’ thematic tightrope walk is encapsulated in the song’s line: “My smile wraps around my head, splitting in two … I don’t know how I can keep the top half glued.” They’re still smiling, but it’s taking everything in them to stay put together.
“Intentions” is the exclamation point of the narrative’s conclusion, as Joseph sifts through what’s left in the carnage of his despair. He sings, “Intentions are everything … Intentions will set you free.” He goes on to realize, “You will fail most every day and in every way … Intentions will set you free.” The monastic repeating of the phrase mimics a desperate prayer to change, get better, and resurrect any remaining hope.
“Downstairs” shares a sliver of hope for relief from depression’s darkness. Joseph sings, “You can have all I’ve ever made…” in hopes that he’ll learn how to stop, “doubt[ing] the process like I doubt the start.”
“Drum Show” is a straightforward admission that sometimes doing what you love (or what you’re created to do) can provide the relief you’re looking for. The duo sings, “He’d rather feel something than nothing at all … I want to change!”
“Garbage” and “Tally” contain repeated pleas to not give up hope for Joseph simply because he’s spiraling at the moment. The songs encourage the listener to choose hope over despair despite the current circumstances.
“Robot Voices” tells the tale of finding comfort in voices designed to soothe pain, though it’s unclear if the relief will last. Joseph sings, “When I met you, I found you safe and warm/And the robot voices would reassure me.”
“Center Mass” serves as a meditation on the fear that follows someone before their imminent death. Joseph muses on the location that someone targets when looking to kill (the center mass of the soul). He sings, “What a day, getting dark … They call it center mass, the part they aim for.”
“The Contract” contains a paranoid back-and-forth between Joseph and an imagined “necromancer” looming outside his door asking for payment of a previously agreed contract. He begs the consuming figure of his imagination, “I used to see, it felt so real/But now I plead, just take the deal.”
On “Downstairs,” Joseph sings that he’ll, “Take what he believes and hide it/Downstairs” because he feels better “in the cellar.” It’s a sobering lyric designed to target the all too familiar place depression can push a tormented soul.
Losing the will to live and keep going, Joseph admits that he feels dormant. On “Days Lie Dormant,” he sings that he’s “frozen and distorted/Robbed of momentum/Suspended in air.”
Throughout the album, there are references to solutions and salves to pain. These can take the form of “poisonous progressions” or attempts to “microdose” to ease the pain of regret. While none of these lyrics explicitly refer to drugs or drug use, the connection between numbing out pain for relief of emotions swims under the surface.
Spoilers incoming for the aforementioned “City Walls” music video … Poor Clancy doesn’t make it.
It’s not that he dies as much as he succumbs to the grips of the forces he’s been fighting for so long. Clancy leaves the resistance and joins the dark forces first introduced in Blurryface a decade ago.
But there’s still hope. The song ascends into a declaration that the revolutionaries must try again and again to find someone willing to continue the fight. In this ending, Twenty One Pilots is clear: No one can overcome their faults on their own. Left alone, we’ll each give in eventually.
That is, unless we find the one able to transcend the battle and overthrow the regime. In this construction, Breach bends grammatical boundaries to become both verb and noun. The album breaks through the despair to discover something greater. And it also serves as a reminder of the gap or tear created when something is broken beyond repair.
Though Twenty One Pilots would never be so direct as to reveal which option is best, they still keep carving out the diverging paths. You can feel Joseph and Dun straining to choose hope, and they’re desperately imploring, pleading, hoping you’ll do the same.
A postscript: Though Twenty One Pilots has consistently dealt positively and honestly with the issue of suicide, for some, even a positive reference to the topic could reinforce suicidal ideation. For more information on helping teens deal with this important topic, check out Focus on the Family’s resource Alive to Thrive.
Jackson Greer is a High School English Teacher in the suburbs of Texas. He lives in Coppell, Texas with his wife, Clara. They love debating whether or not to get another cat and reading poetry together. Also, he is a former employee of Focus on the Family’s Parenting Department.
