twenty one pilots
Trench

Why do I feel so empty? I'm trapped in this condition without being able to free myself definitively... around me only gray walls and the black is just a shadow. Why was I born here? Was I truly born or did someone or something imprison me here? Around 3:46 pm, I resign myself... but wait... what's that? A glimmer of faint light, a hope I can cling to! I try to get closer, crawl towards the vivid Canary Yellow, so far away... but when I'm so close that I can smell its color... there it is, the atomic bomb that wipes out any certainty

I really love starting reviews with a brief piece of prose fiction, to give an idea of the sensations you might feel listening to the album I'm about to analyze. And in this case, this method fits perfectly with "Trench", the new effort by Twenty Øne Piløts (a band unfortunately tossed between extreme fanaticism, "cheesy" and "mainstream" pieces, and immovable detractors). In fact, the main focus of this modern "Concept Album" is the lyrics and their narrative of a post-apocalyptic world balanced between intimacy and sharing, between "fantastic" storytelling and depressive crisis. Nothing original, to be clear... conceptually, depression has been analyzed and narrated since the dawns of music... but never in this way. Because this album speaks directly to today's teenagers, who are inevitably different from those back then.
Even musically, it caters more comfortably to a twenty-something listener than to one from the old guard, but even the latter could find some delightful "Eargasmic" moments in this "Trench". In fact, there is a huge leap in compositional quality between this and the penultimate album "Blurryface". Almost completely leaving behind the "Reggae" rhythms and the Ukulele, T&ØP move even closer to an electronic and powerful sound, especially in the opening track "Jumpsuit" or in the twelfth "Pet Cheeta". The "mainstream" and "radio" songs are more elaborate and studied with a return to '70s "Funk" and "Disco" sounds, with falsettos and syncopated basses, in the tracks "Morph", "My Blood", and "Legend". Even the typical "Ukulele-Reggae" compositions (which, let's face it, were a bit annoying in previous albums) are more complete and structured, an example of what I mean can be heard in the single "Nico And The Niners".

I know that for us DeBasici (is that what we're called?) who have been chewing on music since the dawn of time, it's very difficult to approach these "new" musicians (in heavy quotes), because there's always the risk of falling into huge disappointments and the usual boring melodies that make you want to tear out your ear drums, but in this "Trench" there is something extremely valuable, which doesn't stray too far from the "modern Pop," but which improves it in many aspects. And now, in conclusion, a new segment: the "moment of provocation":

So I tell you... In a future museum of pre-evolutionary music, this CD will be placed between "Quadrophenia" by The Who and "The Wall" by Pink Floyd. Goodness me!