The Secrets of 'Trench' - Part I

On 25 October 2018, critically acclaimed musical duo twenty one pilots released their fifth full length studio album after a lot of cryptic teasing, ‘Trench’. The album was praised and seemed to be a new, more interesting instrumental direction for the group. The crunching choruses and sweet pop hooks had been replaced with murky, swampy pianos and synths, and lyrically, the album was abstract, ambiguous, and raised a lot of questions that fans were left to decode. During this essay, I’m going to throw my hat into the ring and give you my take in terms of decoding the narrative through line of ‘Trench’. 

An appropriate place to start would be the cryptic website the band put up full of images and, most notably, journal entries signed by the mysterious figure, Clancy. During the first part of this essay, I’m going to be critically analysing these journal entries. The first entry sets the stage perfectly. It establishes that when he was younger, Clancy was enticed by Dema (the dystopian city that represents mental illness across the album): ‘As a child, I looked upon Dema with wonder’. Genius. Children are, after all, largely oblivious to the idea of mental illness as a whole, so framing Clancy as not being at all suspicious when he first sets foot in Dema makes perfect logical sense. Clancy expands, noting that he had a ‘deep affection for Dema’ when he was younger. This reinforces my previous point, but you could easily see this young Clancy as a teenage Tyler Joseph who perhaps fell into the trap of thinking mental illness should be glorified. There is further evidence for this theory as the track ‘Neon Gravestones’ directly deals with this issue. Tyler sings: ‘In my opinion our culture can treat a loss like it’s a win / and right before we turn on them, we give them the highest of praise / and hang their banner from a ceiling / communicating, further engraving / an earlier grave is an optional way / no’. This song is framed as a message to society, but it could also be interpreted as Clancy desperately trying to talk some sense into a young Tyler who is still not entirely sure what mental illness is and what he is going through. 

Clancy also proceeds to talk about Keons (the bishop associated with the song ‘Heavydirtysoul’ from ‘Blurryface’) is a bishop that he is ‘proud to serve’. There are very limited connections you can make between this detail and the text of the album, but it is still fascinating to note. 

The second entry does not quite provide us with the same level of detailed insight as the first, but it is interesting to note that Clancy has never considered Dema a home, but merely a place where he exists. If that doesn't some up mental illness, I don’t know what will. Lacking a feeling of belonging and consequently feeling everything you do holds no value in the great scheme of things. That concept undoubtedly makes up an essential chunk of the thematic arc of the album. 

It is also interesting the way the entry ends: ‘This hope of discovery alone has birthed a new vision of myself; a better version, I hope, that I will find a way to experience what’s beyond these colossal walls’. It is things like this that has led many people to believe that Clancy is the opposite of Blurryface, the titular title character from the bands previous album that represents all of Tyler Joseph’s insecurities and the irrational side of his brain. Clancy is instead thought to represent the hopeful, rational side of Tyler’s mind. 

The third entry offers a slight expansion to the universe too. Clancy writes ‘But what I call a sentence, other accept as normalcy. How do they so efficiently eradicate the dream within us?’ This is an unsettling detail. It must only make Clancy feel even more alone knowing that those who live among him have accepted mental illness as a part of life and do not have the motivation to fight it off that Clancy has. Obviously, we find out later on the album that the Banditos exist, a group of people trying to help people escape Dema who Tyler even acknowledges on ‘My Blood’, and on ‘Leave The City’ he sings the climactic line ‘In trench I’m not alone’. So clearly there are motivated people in Dema with him. This of course assumes that Tyler and Clancy are the same thing, and the general consensus does seem to suggest they are different entities as I discussed earlier. Either way, it’s an odd, unsettling, borderline uncanny detail. 

Journal entry four is a bit of a contradictory mess. Clancy has been framed as this lonely figure who does not share his dream of leaving Dema with anyone. So why all of a sudden do we have the plural pronoun ‘we’ turning up and suggesting he’s not alone in his quest. Two possible explanations: either the ‘we’ is referring to both Tyler and Clancy, or, the more likely one, ‘we’ is referring to Clancy and the Banditos, but there’s no direct reference to them at any stage in the text of the journal entries up to this point, making this explanation sound both plausible and unlikely. You could make the argument that Clancy’s relationship with the Banditos is established in the trilogy of music videos released to accompany the journal entries, but we’ve already established that the general consensus is that Tyler (who we see in the music videos) and Clancy (who the journal entries are signed by) are different entities; there is no clear answer. You see why trying to come up with a timeline that pieces together all these events is so challenging. Twenty one pilots certainly don’t like making it easy for anyone. The rest of the entry details Clancy’s plan. 

Clancy is revealed to have escaped Dema in the next entry. It is truly fascinating the way that he goes about describing how he feels having escaped: ‘I feel weightless. I knew that place had always held me down, but for the first time, I can feel the levity I had hoped for’. This quote from the fifth entry makes it pretty explicit that there is some link between these events and the song ‘Levitate’ from the album, a song that sets the stage about what goes on in Dema and links it to what goes on in popular culture as a whole. We will discuss this link in greater detail when we come to discussing ‘Levitate’ in our track by track analysis. 

Clancy may have escaped, but the terror of Dema remains: ‘I can see it back in the distance, and I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t constantly on my mind...I feel betrayed by what I assumed was my home – if I ever end up back there, I want to be able to look at it in the same way’. Haunting when you take on board what happens next. We’ll get to it. 

The rest of the entry reflects of the wonder of having escaped Dema and entered Trench, the long road back to civilisation. Clancy describes it as ‘vast’, ‘endless’, and, most oddly of all, ‘open. Not precisely what you and I would associate with a trench. Perhaps this is used to further emphasize how controlling the bishops of Dema were that something as deep and lonely as a trench can make Clancy feel so free. But what might be most chilling is the line ‘I wonder who else is out here’. This is truly chilling as it is a key concept that makes up the climactic moment on the album’s closing track ‘Leave The City’ where Tyler sings in the song’s dying moments ‘And though I’m far from home / In Trench I’m not alone’. More on this in a bit. 

The final entry is perhaps most well-known for the being a bit of a big reveal. Up to this point, people who were studying these entries at the time of them being released had assumed that Tyler and Clancy were the same person. This changed everything. Clancy talks about finding someone else (probably Tyler) travelling through Trench, and watching a bishop (probably Nico) possess them. The details are few and pretty abstract, but the bishop is described as possessing Tyler by doing something with his hands: ‘outstretched hands smeared his neck’. This is exactly what we see happen to Tyler in the music videos. The penny drops, Clancy is not Tyler Joseph. 

By no means the only interesting bit of this entry though. Clancy, shaken by what he has seen, runs away quickly as he confronts the idea that he might not be alone in Trench. He then questions why he even left Dema in the first place, describes Trench as ‘endless and hopeless’, and then says this: ‘At least Dema is a place that I know, and at times like this, I miss a lot about what I know. This will be much tougher than I imagined. Nothing out here is familiar. I've witnessed the presence of others for the first time today, and I feel more alone than ever. Cover me’. Make no mistake, this is powerful stuff. Clancy, after nine years and faced with an opportunity to escape Dema for good, is second guessing himself in the vast emptiness of Trench, ending it with the final use of the recurring phrase ‘cover me’. Sound familiar? It should. Part II where we will discuss the music video trilogy is coming.

Review of: 'Trench' by twenty one pilots

To be honest, I'd struggle to think of anyone less qualified to cover this album than me. After all, unlike everyone else who appeared to fall head over heals for the third album of duo twenty one pilots, I was only mostly positive on it. Don't get me wrong, the instrumentation was wild and diverse, Tyler Joseph certainly had the voice to sell a lot of the heavier moments, but the most frustrating thing about that album was that for however many claims that Joseph wants to make that his songs will never be on the radio, the best songs on 'Blurryface' were the shimmering, radio ready pop songs. I will obviously acknowledge that I'm in the significant minority when I say that, but I was looking forward to this album, I wanted to know what I was missing in not getting on board with this group when they initially broke through.

But, I was still concerned. Lead single 'Jumpsuit' did not seem to have any huge charting impact, but the underwritten, mysterious nature of that song meant that, while I did find the song interesting, I haven't been coming back to it all that much, on account of being more intrigued to see how the song fits into the wider context of the album. So, with all that being said, was 'Trench' the album that got me on board with this band?

You know what, I think 'Trench' might be the album that has finally allowed me to understand what all the hype about twenty one pilots is about. 'Trench', undoubtedly their best album, is a thematically dense, instrumentally thrilling affair that might juggle its way between musical styles, ends up being one of the duo's most cohesive albums to date, both instrumentally and lyrically.

Although, it might seem initially that not a lot has changed musically. The drums are as as sharp as ever on 'Chlorine' and 'Pet Cheetah', but there is also a continued reliance on more swampy synthetic elements and dark pianos that swarm across these songs and give them a lot of intense, dark swell. It is also worth noting that the genre hopping on this album is a lot more subtle than it was on 'Blurryface' for example, and there are no clear pop crossover tracks on this album like 'Stressed Out' or 'Tear In My Heart' on that last album. But, that being said, the instrumentals are still some of the best the group has ever had. The huge groove that runs throughout 'Jumpsuit', the subtle touches of the piano that really help 'Neon Gravestones' and 'Bandito' both land with such a punch, to the ukulele touches on 'Legends' and the infectious instrumental on 'The Hype' that makes me wish that Joseph did not sound as nasal on that song.

But, generally, Joseph sounds as good as he's ever been on a twenty one pilots album. His rapping on 'Levitate' is still excellent (but his flow on 'Pet Cheetah' does sound oddly stilted and awkward), but when he's required to be more subtle in his delivery on 'Neon Gravestones' and 'Leave The City', especially on that latter track, he proves he's more than a match for the thick, swampy mixes.

Despite all this, the album does occasionally tilt into tones that I personally don't like. The pitch shifting drizzled over the hook on 'Nico And The Niners' felt inessential at best, and some of the tones on 'Cut My Lip' and 'Pet Cheetah' can get really grading in a hurry.  And occasionally some songs can just aren't as melodic or memorable as the rest. The flute fragments that are buried in the mix on the 'Smithereens', and how the main melody never really breaks through or resonates with me on 'Bandito' until the dying third, these are examples of this.

And this leads me onto what I believe will be a big talking point when it comes to this album: the melodic composition. I might not be the biggest fan in the world of  'Blurryface', but that album was distinctly melodic and catchy at more points than it wasn't. Those catchy moments are a lot harder to find on this album. The only moments where a heavy groove comes through is on 'Jumpsuit' and maybe 'Pet Cheetah' if I'm being generous. Instead, this album is much more reliant on the rich build-up of piano and strings, synth fragments, perhaps most evident on the closing track 'Leave The City', and, on the harsher tracks like 'Chlorine', 'Levitate' and 'Pet Cheetah', quick percussion and walls of electronic effects with only bursts of deeper melody on the hooks.

Believe it or not, I think this really works. 'My Blood' is probably the best example. The restrained groove partnered with richer synths and Joseph reaching into his falsetto for a killer hook before dropping into a rap flow and making it look totally effortless on the second verse. Undoubtedly the band at there best on this album.

But now we need to talk about the reason the album has attracted so much attention, the lyrics and themes, and the reason why I think the looser melodic approach really works in terms of communicating the message the band are trying to put across. However, I will attempt to be fairly brief in my discussion of the themes as I'm planning a much longer piece where I discuss the narrative in detail. To put it in as brief a way as I can put it, this is a story about mental illness, and the challenges that comes with trying to escape from it, mental illness itself being represented by Nico (who is directly referenced on 'Morph' and Nico And The Niners') and eight other bishops. The band teased a lot of letters signed by Clancy on a mysterious website about their experiences in the dystopian city of Dema. Furthermore, the Banditos are established as a rebellion against the bishops, likely who Joseph is directly talking to on 'My Blood' ('I'll go with you'), but, despite his efforts, on 'Leave The City' though the eerie line 'they know that it's almost over', that he never did escape Dema, but he's okay with it, content with simply being alive.

While 'Trench' does does have a few problems,  I'm still going to give it a light 4 / 5. If this can be an album that brings a new way of listening to music (more as an interactive experience) to the masses, that's only a good thing.

Rating: 4 / 5

Best Songs: 'My Blood', 'Leave The City', 'Neon Gravestones', 'Legend'

Worst Songs: 'Cut My Lip'

Review of ‘Cry Pretty’ by Carrie Underwood

I feel like I should like Carrie Underwood’s music more than I do. After all, she’s a strong woman in mainstream country, and I do respect her for that, even though the quality of her singles recently has been all over the map. Even though I do tend to like more Carrie Underwood tracks than I dislike, her overly polished pop production can feel a bit predictable, as well as her lack of ability when it comes to subtlety. But how is Underwood’s new album, ‘Cry Pretty’.

Well, it’s passable certainly, but it’s also a total mess. ‘Cry Pretty’ by Carrie Underwood is one of the most spectacular pile-up’s of pop tones and textures I’ve heard. And yes, this is a pop album with country elements shoved into the background so country radio has an excuse to play the singles. And, on that note, let’s start by discussing the production. I can see a lot of people making the Sam Hunt comparison, and, honestly, as much I can kind of hear it in a lot of the choppy, overly stiff production, I personally think that comparison is a tad harsh, mainly because Underwood’s boundless, infectious does a lot to sell ‘Southbound’, ‘Love Wins’ and ‘Kingdom’; all three of those songs are better than anything I’ve heard from Sam Hunt recently. That doesn't mean to say that the production is consistent, as it really is anything but. The main issue with a lot of these songs is that the melodies are often far too choppy to be all that memorable. Take the overly synthetic production on ‘That Song That We Used To Make Love To’, or the rickety feel that the hooks on ‘Drinking Alone’ and ‘Low’ being clear offenders.

I would argue that the less cluttered the mixes are, the better the songs turn out. These tend to be the songs that give Underwood the greatest opportunity to show off her huge vocal range. ‘Spinning Bottles’, ‘Love Wins’ and ‘Kingdom’ may not be great songs thanks to the overly polished feel they all have, but they are a much better fit for Underwood’s vocals than a lot of the clumsily mixed overstuffed songs we get here.

But what I’m more interested in when it comes to this kind of pop country is the lyrics, and, despite getting a few interesting relationship songs, a lot of whar you’re getting with this album you’ve probably heard before. I liked ‘Drinking Alone’ a lot more when it was called ‘Alone Together’ by Dan + Shay, and ‘Love Wins’ and ‘Kingdom’ are pretty conventional and unspectacular in how they’re written, despite kind of liking both songs on account of them both being infectiously catchy.

The biggest shock for me on this album was the song ‘Southbound’: a bro country song. Not even a clever subversion of the clichés associated with the sub-genre. What surprised me even more was how much it worked. Seriously, in amongst all the relationship drama having a straightforward party track is actually kind of refreshing.

Speaking of that drama, ‘The Bullet’ is one of the more striking songs on the album for its lyrics about gun violence and how families of the victims of gun violence can be strongly affected. ‘Spinning Bottles’ might be even heavier. On this track Underwood presents a story about an alcoholic husband who’s been away for three days in painstaking, eye-watering detail. A real album standout.

But however much these great moments do haul this album out of mediocrity, they can’t do any more than that. A decent album with a few great songs, but some catchy hooks and thematically rich moments can only redeem inconsistent production so much.

3 /5

Best Songs: ‘Spinning Bottles’, ‘The Bullet’, ‘Southbound’, ‘Love Wins’

Worst Songs: ‘That Song That We Used To Make Love To’

Review of ‘sweetener’ by Ariana Grande

I had some hopes this album might be good after lead single ‘no tears left to cry’ grew on me, but, unfortunately, I don’t quite think the album quite lived up to the promise of that track. What we got was a serviceable, but oddly dour album. The lack of vibrant instrumentation is a bit of a dealbreaker across this album. You would have thought that ‘R.E.M’, ‘successful’ and ‘better off’ could have done with more colouful production that would really flatter Grande’s huge vocal range.

But that doesn't mean to say that there aren’t moments where Grande gets to flex her tremendous range, the bridge on ‘goodnight n go’ being the standout, but considering that when placed over more dynamic production like on ‘no tears left to cry’ or ‘breathin’, Grande can sell these songs very well. I might not love either ‘the light is coming’ or ‘blazed’ all that much, but at least Pharrell Williams gave these songs some unique flare and personality which I can’t say an awful lot of the songs on this album have.

But, that being said, Grande said herself that this project was more ‘a bunch of songs that I really really like’ than a typical album, which could explain a lot of the scattershot production choices, but no where does this come through than the songwriting. Sure, there are simply framed love / crush songs like ‘sweetener’, ‘borderline’, ‘God is a women’, and ‘goodnight n go’ but there are more complex songs. On ‘everytime’ Grande is constantly being brought back to the guy she’d thought she said goodbye to for good, but ‘breathin’ might just be the most potent of the bunch as she sets her sights on the future and vows to keep her head high even in the tragedy she found herself in May 2017.

And, on that note, there are other songs that are clearly inspired by those tragic events, but ‘no tears left to cry’, ‘the light is coming’ and ‘get well soon’ all, like ‘breathin’ are more focused on looking forward rather than being stuck in the past, and there is certainly something to seeing such a young pop star deal with that whole situation as maturely as Grande does.

But overall, this is an album that undoubtedly should be better than it is. A decent, but heavily compromised pop album.

3 / 5

Best Songs: ‘breathin’, ‘no tears left to cry’, ‘goodbye n go’, ‘everytime’

Worst Songs: ‘better off’, ‘successful’

Review of: ‘Villains’ by Emma Blackery

Sometimes it’s difficult to appreciate the lengths that artists go to in order to make their album, case in point, pop singer and songwriter Emma Blackery. Initially inspired by YouTube comedy stars, Blackery has been gradually electing to push that aside in favour of pursuing a career as a songwriter and singer, and a whole lot of work and a few EPs later, the debut independently released studio album ‘Villains’ was born and is now available.

However much I was looking forward to this album, my expectations were not sky high. The lead single ‘Dirt’ divided fans, and while ‘Agenda’ was a measurable step forward, it was clear that a lot of people were unsure if the hero they knew and loved for her comedy beginnings on YouTube would be able to pull through on a full length album. So, did Emma Blackery and her collaborating producers make something worthwhile on ‘Villains’?

I'll say this, this album tested me. It's a total mess and one that borrows from every corner of pop music and a total nightmare in terms of instrumental cohesion. But despite the pileup of pop tones and textures that make up this album, it would be wrong to call this album outright bad, mainly because there is at least something of a thematic core to it that we will discuss in detail later.

But first, the production, and, as I mentioned earlier, it's all over the place. Between the theatrical and kind of overblown crush of the chorus on 'Villains Pt. 1', the more conventional and accessible production with the sweeping synths on 'Dirt' and 'Agenda', to the swampier production style on 'Take Me Out' and 'Third Eye', I can definitely say that Emma Blackery and her collaborators did not make a boring pop album. That doesn't mean to say I like all of it, though. I've already discussed how 'Villains Pt. 1' feels incredibly overblown, but you could easily place 'Burn The Witch' into the same category. On the other end of the scale you have a song like 'Petty' where the guitar groove might be welcome, but by the hook it's been swallowed by wonky sounding synth fragments that clash horribly with the main melody. 'Take Me Out' is another example. The buildup might be pleasant, but by the hook the melody is heavily compromised by grading rickety percussion that does not need to be there.

It might sound like I'm being overly harsh on a debut album that clearly did not have a significant budget, but there was potential even with all this in mind. 'Third Eye' and 'Burn The Witch' are far from a great songs, but the galloping hooks are pretty infectious. 'Icarus' is another one I can see myself coming back to with the restraint central melody proving remarkably sticky. Similar case with the more jittery production that grew on me a lot on 'Fake Friends', but the best song on this album is by far 'What I Felt With You' where the mix is emptied of all the chaos giving Blackery the room on the mix to properly emote.

But a lot of that song's power comes from where it's placed on the album, and so let's discuss the thematic arc on this album. In short, it's about the villains in Blackery's life, particularly a nameless ex who somehow did her wrong (even though the most evil thing we see him do is call Blackery out for some reason on social media after the break up on 'Dirt'). From there the album sees Blackery trying to hide her emotions on 'Fake Friends', reflecting on what she could have done better on 'Icarus', coming to terms with any lingering feelings on ‘What I Felt With You’, before letting her resent for this guy take her over on ‘Burn The Witch’. While this may seem rather unspectacular on the surface, I will give Blackery a lot of credit for her self aware framing. Take a song like ‘Icarus’ with lines like ‘You know the higher you fly the less you can hide’ in reference to how she’s aware of her own egotistical tendencies, it makes the obnoxious kiss off tracks like ‘Dirt’, ‘Petty’ and to a lesser extent ‘Agenda’ at least feel vaguely self aware. Part of the reason why Blackery singing about self doubt (‘But what can I do when I've got nothing else / Not even myself) actually have a fair bit of weight to it, she knows her flaws.

That doesn't mean to say that there are not moments that just make me role my eyes. Take the nursery rhyme cadence on ‘Agenda’ where she spells out the titular word, and on ‘Burn The Witch’ where on the bridge Blackery sings ‘Roses are red, violets are blue / Lady Karma’s a bitch and she’s coming for you’. Furthermore, on ‘Petty’ you get lines like ‘You used to call me petty ‘till you took out the R’, and even on the standout ‘What I Felt With You’ you get the line ‘I hate the colour blue ‘cause that’s what I felt with you’. In these cases this kind of songwriting can work, but for an album trying to be as over the top and theatrical as this you wouldn’t think this cutesy writing style would be a good idea.

But overall, this album is a mess, but the mingled, vaguely self aware framing did a lot for me. I’m not sure it quite enough to hoist the album above just about passable, but I get the feeling that Blackery won’t get the credit she deserves in terms of the subtlety of some of her songwriting, and that’s the real tragedy.

3 / 5

Best Songs: ‘What I Felt With You’, ‘Icarus’, ‘Agenda’, ‘Villains Pt. 1’

Worst Songs: ‘Petty’