Album review: twenty one pilots – Clancy

Much like an attempted escape away from Dema, it’s a real adventure, full of twists and turns. The Craving (Jenna’s Version) hears the singer pay tribute to his wife with a strikingly raw performance, before he takes aim at the music industry on Lavish over hypnotising orchestral flourishes. Bonus: this one also includes the ridiculously fun line: ‘I say whatever and whatever that I want / Sip a Capri-Sun like it’s Dom Pérignon…’

Then we get to Navigating. A Bloc Party-esque banger propelled by Josh’s relentless drumming, this is the prime example of twenty one pilots at their peak, fusing together a seemingly inescapable downward spiral with electrifying dance-rock: ‘Pardon my delay,’ the frontman anxiously exclaims, ‘I’m navigating my head.’

As always, though, when there’s twenty one pilots, there’s also hope. The feel-good simplicity of Oldies Station hears Tyler encourage – to the listener, but also to himself – ‘When darkness rolls on you / Push on through.’ It means a lot. And then, finally, we return to the world of Trench with album closer Paladin Strait. To write too much on this one would be to ruin the past few years of thoughtful and careful creation, so we’ll just say this: make sure you listen to all six-and-a-half minutes, right ’til the very end. If you’re a keen follower of the story, it’ll probably leave your jaw on the floor.

In the future, Tyler and Josh may move away from these concepts, or create something else entirely. Who knows? Either way, Clancy is a triumphant full-stop. Nine years on from where the seeds of the idea were first planted with Blurryface – not to mention that album’s subsequent extraordinary success – twenty one pilots are flying higher than ever.