Twenty-One Pilots has been relevant in the alt/indie music scene for a little over a decade now, becoming especially popular with their song, “Stressed Out”, which was one of the hottest songs of 2015. However, even with their massive success, I still hadn’t heard of them or paid attention to them until I entered my wannabe-emo phase in 2020 and ran across their song “Message Man” on SoundCloud. Since then, I have become a total Twenty-One Pilots fangirl, so when I heard that a new album was being released this year (3 years after their Scaled and Icy album), I was stoked. Even more exciting was that Clancy (named after the fictional character that represents Tyler Joseph) was supposed to be the end of the Blurryface storyline which can be traced all the way back to Twenty-One Pilots’ self-titled album that was released in 2009. Unfortunately, though this album had a ton of hype around it, it unfortunately didn’t deliver on its promises.
#1: The Music
The music by itself without the overarching Blurryface storyline is great. While I liked some songs better than others (with “Overcompensate”, “Navigating”, and “Routines in the Night” being my top three), Twenty-One Pilots did a pretty good job with incorporating some new genres into their music while still keeping it in line with the sounds of some of their previous albums, especially with that of the Trench album (2019), from which Clancy draws greatly on. We even see direct connections to Trench in the opening of “Overcompensate” which incorporates lyrics from the Trench-era song, “Banditos”, when a voice sings, “I created this world/ To feel some control/Destroy it if I want/So I sing Sahlo Folina…” which gave me chills when I heard it for the first time.
#2: The Videos
The music videos do an amazing job of connecting Clancy to previous albums, especially in “Overcompensate” (which connects it to Scaled and Icy, Trench, and even Blurryface with Tyler Joseph’s neck and hand paint), “Backslide” and “Routines in the Night” (which have a ton of Blurryface-era parallels, especially in the lighting), “Navigating” (Trench parallels), and “Snap Back” (which I think should be the earliest video in the Blurryface timeline given the fact that he still has the long hair from Scaled and Icy). The symbolism on Josh Dun’s drum set also is reminiscent of Blurryface and serves to connect it even more. It was clear that these music videos were supposed to be trying to connect everything and tie everything together for a big finale in the song “Paladin Straight”, but kinda failed…which leads me to the next point….
#3: Clancy and the Banditos vs. Dema
For those of you who are new to Twenty-One Pilots or are just casual fans who wondering who Clancy, the Banditos, or Dema is, here’s the very simplified run down:
Dema is an oppressive city run by nine bishops (also called Nico (the head bishop that is representative of depression; a.k.a. Blurryface) and the Niners) that each represent depression, denial, self-doubt, defeat, fear of love, repetition and conformity, fear of abandonment/overthinking, and worry. Each one of them were set up in different songs within the Blurryface album and were flushed out a bit more in Trench and Scaled and Icy Each bishop has a tower within Dema where they watch the people. If anyone tries to escape their assigned bishop/insecurity, the bishop will ride out to bring them back to the city. They practice a religion called vialism which encourages its members to commit suicide to get to paradise.
The Banditos are a group of people who have managed to successfully escape Dema (led by Josh Dun) who are fighting to destroy the bishops and free the people of Dema (which is symbolic of setting the people free of their insecurities and mental conditions).
Lastly, Clancy is the main character of the Dema storyline. He is sort-of like Tyler Joseph’s alter ego and is enslaved to the leader of the bishops of Dema, Nico, who is the worst of the worst. He seeks to escape him with Josh Dun’s help, but keeps being dragged back. However, every time he manages to escape, he is able to provide more and more info about Dema that helps that Banditos and finally, in this album, he seems to have made it out and the last fight is told in “Paladin Straight”
Get it? Got it. Good.
This is where the storyline gets weird and sets up my biggest problem with the album. Even though it was advertised as being the end of the Dema storyline, at the end of “Paladin Straight”, we hear these lines:
On the ground are banditos
Fighting while I find Nico
Even though I’m past the point of no return
Climb the top of the tower
“Show yourself,” I yell louder
Even though I’m past the point of no ret—
So few, so proud, so emotional
Hello, Clancy
While I can give Twenty-One Pilots kudos for tying the end of the album into Trench and Blurryface (the second to last line comes from line “It’s the few, the proud, and the emotional,” from the song “Fairly Local”), this end isn’t a closed ending. It’s a cliffhanger that keeps us wondering what happens next. Has Tyler Joseph/Clancy and the Banditos defeated Nico/Blurryface once and for all? Has he been captured again? Will this lead to another album about Blurryface? We just don’t know. Maybe we will get more clarification after the music video for “Paladin Straight” is released, but until then, this album still confuses me.
With that said, would I still listen to it? Yes. The music’s good and I enjoy some of the overall messages. It just needs a better ending than the one we have been given so far.
Until next time,
M.J.
The Tanuki Corner 
Leave a comment