Review: Twenty-One Pilots Albums Ranked.

I’ve talked quite a bit about Twenty-One Pilots over the past few months and this week many of my posts will be centered around them. Why? Because Breach is finally being released on Friday. Finally – hopefully – we will get the long-awaited end to the DEMA storyline, and the Banditos will be victorious. So, in that case, I’m going to rank Twenty-One Pilots’ albums starting with my favorite album and moving to my least favorite.

#1: Blurryface

Blurryface was the first Twenty-One Pilots album I ever listened to with the song “Message Man” being the song that made me like the band. I would listen to it on repeat constantly. I loved the dark mood that many of the songs on the album had and enjoyed the songs that were more upbeat as well. Overall, my favorite songs on that album are “Message Man,” “Fairly Local,” “Lane Boy,” and “The Judge.”

#2: Trench

Trench is my second favorite not just because several of the songs are absolute bangers that make you want to go fight DEMA, but also because this was the album I would most often listen to from 13-14. During hard times, I could feel myself resonating with songs like “Bandito” and “Leave the City.” Listening to it would sometimes help me feel better about my situation. My favorite songs on this album (other than the ones I just mentioned) are “Nico and the Niners,” “Morph,” “Levitate,” and “Chlorine.”

#3: Clancy

I enjoyed this album quite a bit when it came out, even though it was a letdown for not being the end of the story. Musically, it’s very well done and has a unique sound to it. It combines themes and lyrics from Trench, and it picks up perfectly where Scaled and Icy left off. For more on it, I wrote a post about it last year which is linked above.

#4: Vessel

Vessel is an interesting album due to the sound. Released in 2013 before TOP got really popular, you can hear how the band was still trying to figure itself out. It relies very heavily on synth and sounds totally different from any of the other albums. That said, it’s a really fun album to listen to even though some of the lyrics get really dark (such as in “Guns for Hands,” which is about a kid wanting to commit suicide after a failed attempt at slitting his wrists). My favorite songs from this one were “Holding onto You,” “Migraine,” “House of Gold,” and “Trees.”

#5: Scaled and Icy

Like many people, I wasn’t a massive fan of this album. Sure, there were a few good songs on there, but it was overly pop-y for my taste. There’s also the fact that within the DEMA storyline, Scaled and Icy is supposed to be propaganda being put out by the bishops, who had captured Clancy. Thus, while it’s necessary to the storyline, it’s still not the best album that the band has put out.

[Author’s Note: This album was also the second worst-rated album Twenty-One Pilots has ever put out with a score of a measly 59, after Regional at Best, which had a score of 49. People just did not like this album.]

#6: Twenty-One Pilots

This was the band’s self-titled album, released in 2009. With this one, you could tell that they were still unsteady as a band, just testing the surface and seeing what style they wanted to do. Lyrically, this album is really good and there are some good songs. However, the music relies heavily on piano and just isn’t as good as later albums.

#7: Honorable Mention: Regional at Best

This one is at the bottom because, for some reason, even though this album exists and you can still find songs from it on YouTube and TOP will sing some of them at concerts, it was never actually released. If you try to find the whole album on YouTube or Spotify, the closest you’ll get are playlists that diehard fans have put together based off their best guess of how the album was supposed to go. However, from what I’ve heard of this album, while it has some of the weaknesses of Twenty-One Pilots, it also sounds like Vessel part two. But since it was never officially released, I’m going to have to put it at the bottom as an honorable mention.

Until next time,

M.J.