Twenty One Pilots - Blurryface


Twenty One Pilots
Blurryface
2015

Indie Hip-Hop is always a fickle mistress. Taking a genre with roots deep in the urban experience and taking it out to the suburbs can cause most people to say nay. It happened with Gym Class Heroes, it happened with Limp Bizkit and it happened with Linkin Park. Twenty One Pilots new release Blurryface follows that same vein. At times it hits great highs both musically and lyrically, but often it is so aware of exactly what it is doing it falls flat. There has to be a leap of faith with this album, you have to accept that Twenty One Pilots are not going to stick to any formula or let any genre hold them back. They free themselves to take from any and everything: pop, punk, rap, Indie, Dance or whatever. "Fairly Local" is a pop anthem while "Goner" follows more of an emo (think Brand New) type of trajectory. It seems that they have loaded the front of Blurryface with their more rap heavy tunes while leaving the second half of the album for more experimentation.

"Tear in My Heart" quite possibly combines all the aspects that Twenty One Pilots have thrown into this album in the most successful way. It's Indie where it needs to be and popy in other ways, just a really solid song. This record comes across in some many different ways and evokes so many different emotions it is almost impossible to nail down. Blurryface is an example of a band not limited by genre, but still desperately trying to create something catchy. Are they as successful as they were with Vessel? Maybe not, but Blurryface is still an interesting record and definitely worth a spin.  

7 out of 10

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