Clancy, the latest album released by musical duo Twenty One Pilots, has tied up loose ends in the narrative they have been building on for almost ten years. Starting with the first song on their hit 2015 album Blurryface called Heavydirtysoul, the band has told their story through their music videos while building on the background lore in other songs.

  The story is really focused on in the 2018 album Trench, where they tell the story of a young rebel in a fantastical world called Trench. The main character, whose name is later revealed to be Clancy, is trapped in a cycle of escaping the oppressive rulers of the city he lives in named Dema, only to be recaptured every time. The album tells the story of him joining a rebel group called Banditos.

  While their 2021 album Scaled and Icy steered the story in a more forced upbeat direction due to the control of the antagonists, Clancy brings the character back to the rebels and their plan to free the people of Dema from their autocratic leaders. 

  The aforementioned leaders of Dema are the Nine Bishops. The head bishop is named Nico and he is the one who keeps

capturing Clancy. The bishops maintain authority because of a mystical power that only they can possess, and through a hijacked religion that promotes self-destruction. 

  At the end of Scaled and Icy, Clancy learns how to wield this power and so he plans to return to Dema to end the bishops’ reign of tyranny. This is where the album Clancy begins.

  In the first song of Clancy, Overcompensate, our main character teaches the next generation of Banditos the ways of rebellion. We also see that he is mastering the bishops’ magic. In Navigating, Clancy is making his way back to the Banditos since he has been separated from them. And it all comes to a head in the final song and music video.

 The song Paladin Strait is named after a location in the fictional continent of Trench. In the song, Clancy states that he is willing to swim this body of water without any assistance except the knowledge that someone is waiting for him. The music video shows Clancy and the Banditos’ storming of Dema and we see the Bishops raising an army of the dead to stop them.

  Not every song on this, or any of their albums, is completely focused on the narrative. In fact, most aren’t. Some standout songs on Clancy are Next Semester, Midwest Indigo, Vignette, and Oldies Station. Which grapple with a whole host of topics.

  It has been very exciting to watch the creative duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun build up a story to deal with personal struggles through a fictional tale. However, it seems it is now time to move on to other things and to try different things in their music.