By: Jesse Striewski

After 2021’s slightly disappointing Scaled and Icy effort, I wasn’t exactly waiting with baited breath for new material from Twenty One Pilots to be perfectly honest. But thankfully, within minutes of listening it’s apparent their latest concept album, Clancy, would be a more suitable follow-up to 2018’s Trench than the previously-mentioned Scaled… record.

First single and album opener “Overcompensate” didn’t strike me as a masterpiece right off the bat, but once the likes of “Next Semester” and “Backslide” started kicking into gear, I slowly began to “get it.” From then on it’s simply one catchy number after another, including “Routines in the Night” and the more stripped-down “The Craving (Jenna’s Version).”

But it’s truly the latter half that offers up some of the biggest highlights here, with “Navigating,” “Snap Back,” “Oldies Station,” and “At the Risk of Feeling Dumb” all leading to the slightly cryptic climax of “Paladin Strait” to close things off.

Along with co-writer Paul Meany, band leader Tyler Joseph has truly outdone himself here, and has become one of the best of his kind. I’m lucky to have a teenager at just the right age and savoy enough to introduce me to these talented young guys so many years ago to begin with; without his insight, I might have been late to the game here.

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars