As twenty one pilots wrap up their incredible, decade-long lore with eighth album Breach, we look back at what’s gone down in the world of Trench so far…
Well, this is it. On Friday, September 12, twenty one pilots will release their eighth album Breach – and finally put to bed the stunning conceptual story they’ve been telling since 2015’s phenomenal Blurryface (which also includes 2018’s Trench, 2021’s Scaled And Icy, and of course last year’s 5/5-rated Clancy).
Initial album singles The Contract and Drum Show have given little away in terms of how we find protagonist Clancy (played by frontman Tyler Joseph), the Torchbearer (drummer Josh Dun) and the rest of the people of Dema, following that cliffhanger at the end of Paladin Strait in 2024. What we do know, though, is opening track City Walls – along with its $1million-costing music video – will answer major questions. As will Breach closer Intentions, which Tyler revealed is “really important to me, and is my attempt at understanding the ending of the City Walls video”.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this is going to be an emotional moment for millions around the world, not least Tyler and Josh. So, while we impatiently wait a few more days, here’s what you need to know about Breach…
“We played it like our last record Clancy was gonna be the end of the story, and we intentionally knew it was gonna be a cliffhanger, the way it ended,” Tyler recently revealed to Zane Lowe on New Music Daily. “I think that we felt that we had done a misdirection to the fans – we never like to pull the rug out from under them, so intentionally knowing that we wanted to name the following record Breach was kind of this play on, you know, we kind of breached their trust a bit, in a way that actually ties into the story that we’re telling as well.”
“There was a moment where we thought we were just going to add songs to [Clancy],” Tyler said in the same Zane chat. “I would go to my local coffee shop, and one of the guys that works there always asks how things are going, and I tell him, ‘We’re thinking about adding some songs to the record to kind of wrap it up,’ and he goes, ‘Oh, like a deluxe.’ My heart sank! That’s how you describe fast food. Josh and I talk about how there’s no other way within our culture right now and the way that we consume music, that’s the easiest way to describe adding songs to the record: deluxe. It almost makes it seem like they were songs that didn’t make the cut at first, or whatever. This industry right now is all about just trying to add stuff to records to give them a second, third life. And we’re not into that. We knew that this had to live as its own record.”
We met the character of Blurryface a decade ago, with Tyler having donned black paint on his neck and hands by way of showing this alter-ego since 2015. Shortly after the album’s release, the two were still getting to grips with what they’d created (“Josh and I, we’ve learned so much about this character – who he is, how we can defeat him, or help each other defeat him,” Tyler told K! at the time), but the frontman had certainly been plotting away in the background before things properly exploded for the band: “As the fans started to build up this character and breathe more life and meaning into the album Blurryface, I realised, ‘Oh wait, this is gonna work – this is gonna go there!’”
While Trench was the album that really introduced listeners to a wider world beyond Blurryface, Tyler told us ahead of that record’s release that he’d “had the story a lot longer than some people would maybe know”. Detailing his grand plans to Josh in the summer of 2017 before the pair got to work, the drummer was surprised at first – “It was like he ate a wrong berry or something, like he’d gotten super-high…” he joked of Tyler’s idea – but they trusted that listeners would be on board, just as they were with Blurryface. “It would be a shame to not tap into [fans’] creativity, and to their reaction to things,” Tyler continued. “We’ve always enjoyed doing that. This world is gonna grow, and they’re gonna help it grow, for sure.”
“There’s many facets to it,” Tyler explained to Kerrang! in 2018. “It’s more than just a place, for sure. It really depends on which angle you look at it. I wanted to explore the idea of looking at your mind as a place that’s a little more geographical than some people would think of it. But when we talk about ‘getting lost in your head’, or ‘don’t go there’, or ‘stay away from this place’, you start to realise that there is a bit of a map inside your head. You learn where you should stay away from, and where you’re safest, and where you’re most creative, and where you’re most vulnerable. And, at the same time, I took that concept and applied it to what I was currently going through, which was a transition phase – from where we were, to where I want to go.”
With the album Trench detailing said transition phase, Tyler revealed that Dema specifically symbolised being somewhere “you know you shouldn’t be”. That doesn’t mean he can just get up and leave, though – despite how often he’s tried. When twenty one pilots launched Trench with the double-whammy of lead singles Jumpsuit and Nico And The Niners, along with their cinematic videos, we began to learn about the nine Bishops who rule the districts of Dema and enforce a religion called Vialism, with the lead Bishop going by the name Nicolas ‘Nico’ Bourbaki (aka Blurryface). Nico’s kept a close eye on Clancy over the years and forever managed to thwart his attempts to escape, but as we saw at the end of Paladin Strait, it’s time for the two to have their showdown and find out if Clancy can get away once and for all…
“It’s a departure, in a sense,” Tyler teased ahead of the release of the band’s 2021 lockdown record. “But when you know where to look, it still anchors to the story we’ve been telling.” It wasn’t until much later on that we learned just what twenty one pilots had done with Scaled And Icy – an anagram for Clancy Is Dead, gulp – as Dema spread their propaganda to the masses. “I think that when you only have a listen or two to dive in, what you’re inundated with is shiny, colourful and seemingly upbeat,” the singer told us. “But, as always, as you dive into lyrics, a lot of times it’s asking some pretty heavy questions, and it’s addressing some pretty heavy things. That was intentional.”
Of course, fans on Reddit are incredible at summing it all up and digging into wild clues, but this recap video from the band last year is very much worth a watch and covers a lot of ground, too:
As well as the essential physical work we’ve seen him get up to in music videos and onstage, the Torchbearer has been keeping Clancy company via hallucinations and his ability to project himself into others’ psyches – something we found out in last year’s music video for Navigating, and was also touched upon during The Clancy World Tour (particularly the final date at The O2 in London). With so much going on in this story, fans on Reddit are still unsure exactly what his role really is and if there’s something bigger at play – but those who are going to the band’s upcoming Clancy Tour: Breach in America will likely find out up-close: twenty one pilots are involving gig-goers who have lawn tickets to take part in the Bandito Camp, which is an unbelievably cool and exciting prospect. Our advice? Wear yellow, obvs, because the Bishops can’t see that colour…
“I’ve always felt like it’s a real waste of an opportunity to not be creating a story inside of music, and even when I first started writing songs I knew I wanted to attach something larger to it,” Tyler told us around the release of Scaled And Icy. “But, at the same time, Josh and I have always talked about not wanting there to be a prerequisite to enjoy the songs; we don’t want you to have to know all the details of the story thus far in order to really enjoy and find something that means something to you inside of a song.” So whether you’re an in-the-know member of the Clique or just a casual fan wanting to hear some new bangers, get ready to ‘Welcome back to Trench’ for one final time…
Breach is released on September 12 via Fueled By Ramen
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