Hello!

I am luireviewsmusic, and this is my review on the album Trench by Twenty One Pilots. The album is the fourth full length album by Twenty One Pilots. Twenty One Pilots is a fairly new band, but they have a lot of experience and multiple Grammy awards. They are also known for a very free writing style, putting many genres into a single album, unlike many other bands. So let’s see how it does, hey?

The album as a whole

The album as a whole is very interesting. As said before, one of the most notable features or traits of the album is that it’s genres change pretty much every track. Notable samples would be Nico and the Niners as a reggae song, Levitate as a rap song and so on. But nothing even comes close to Jumpsuit, the title song, and its royal aggressive rock feel. It will get it’s own analysis, don’t worry. One thing that worried me about the album as a whole would be the track order and transitions. You see, Jumpsuit and Levitate are two very different tracks, and they should not be close together. But because the gods back at the studio said so, then the switch from the first track to the second track was very cool and interesting. The transition was seamless, and the first time I heard it I literally jumped a meter into the air and hit my head against the roof. And that set very high expectations for me: All other tracks will have that, I am sure! They wouldn’t just do it once, and then lazily edit the others together by fading to black and then out of black again, right! You already know where I am going. It was never used again in the album, and I was so disappointed. It was such a good specimen as a seamless track switch, and especially because the tracks were in different genres, that left me even more disappointed. The second issue that I had was definitely the track order: Because the genres switch constantly, then the transitions are not always light. They are sometimes fairly heavy. But these are just nitpicks, as the rest is great. It does not feel repetitive at all because of the different genres are mixed up together, and the tracks are superbly made.

Individual Tracks

So, the tracks were great. How great? Well, you will just have to listen to them yourself. The tracks vary so greatly, and Twenty One Pilots does a swell job at handling so many genres at once. The tracks felt and were original, so were the lyrics, but one place where it kinda fell was the vocals. There were many nitpicky problems, such as the vocals changing at very unexpected places and the same line used twice to make a rhyme, but the most important oof for me was the vocal layering. You see, usually bands have this kind of layering: You have the base, main layer, then a background layer that says different lyrics and then a choire- sounding layer that says the same things as the singer, but with a different tone and sound altogether. But because of the lack of singing power, they decided that if they just say the same thing that is said in the lyrics, but put a voice filter over it, then that would be completely fine. I noticed, and did not like that. It is not even a problem in a single track, but ALL of them. In some, it was executed well, like in Nico and the Niners at around two minutes, but for the rest of the tracks it just felt like a cheap attempt at layering. But one huge plus for contrast is the very fresh feeling of different song structures. You see, the most common song structure is 121232', the ones being the verses, the twos being the chorus’s, and the three being the third part near the end. Most songs in this album did not follow this structure, and it felt amazing. It felt so new, that I was not able to make these number maps, because everything was so seamless. I loved this a lot. But now I want to talk about specific tracks, the first being

Jumpsuit

Jumpsuit is an interesting one. Critics and Fans love it, but when I first heard it it felt fairly weird. The different and undefined song structure, the weird lyrics, and the constantly changing tone, but at the end it felt very clear, though it only started to make sense when I had listened to it the 6th time. The song structure is unique as it is very undefined, and it gives the track a very fresh feel. The lyrics are also not repetitive, it only grows on you a little at the chorus, but otherwise it was good. It had the seamless transition, and it also had a lot of details on the track. The shortcomings were the vocal layers, which are just simple filters, and also the calm atmosphere of the song ended very suddenly with the aggressive, scream’y end. But I am not sure if the second one is a negative, as it did create a nice, unique and interesting atmosphere to the song, that transferred on to

Levitate

This is nice. A rap song straight after a mixed song felt very refreshing and nice, and cool too. The transition only made it better, and prepared me for the genre and tone switch. I liked the detail in this song, one of them would be the silent “Welcome to the Trench” near the end of the track. I also liked that there was less voice filters. But to be honest, this track made me uncomfortable, and I liked it the least from all tracks in this album. Yes, worse than Pet Cheetah. The track was fast and hard to listen to because of the beat, which frequently went out of sync and back into sync with the vocals. I understand why this is done, but it just feels somewhat weird, and unnecessary. But later in the album would come

Neon Gravestones

You know, I often struggle to write notes for good songs. It is hard to point out mistakes and positive sides when you are enjoying the song as a whole. The simplicity of the track’s vocals worked for its advantage. The genre was also mixed, feeling a little bit like rap in the start but not fully being rap, and also the vocals were generally simple, with a few layers. The layers, however were good, especially the main alternating background layer. The vocals and the track changed lightly in the chorus, making the listening experience more interesting, and the lyrics were nice. I also liked the contrast between the slow track and the rapid vocal advancement, and especially that the track was always as slow, but the drum’s speed changed, making it feel faster, giving it a nice mix-up. Track evolution was also there, however slight, but thanks to tempo changes and the separated song parts it did not feel repetitive at all.

Conclusion

This is a unique, and very original album. It has something for every listener from every genre, and therefore fares very well with other albums. Though I do not plan to listen to this on a daily basis (As I am addicted to Arcade Fire), I will give this an

8/10

For giving a solid listening experience, with a few flaws.

Signing out,

luireviewsmusic

(Special thank you to Iris, who made me make this review)