”That’s crazy. How’d you know that?” Twenty One Pilots drops a new song, “The Contract”, following their 10-year anniversary of Blurryface.
Immediately after ending their Clancy World Tour on May 14th, the band seemed to be hinting at something new. A hiatus? New Album? New Tour? Fans were analyzing any sudden movements that the pilots were making on social media that could hint at what could possibly be next, and some guesses were right on the money.
On May 21st, the twenty one pilots social media accounts announced their next full-length album, “Breach”, which is set to be released in September, with its first single being released on June 12th. Finally bringing an end to the Blurryface storyline.
Although many fans predicted a new album or song, many were also surprised by it. Fans were quick to go on social media and point out all the new content and lore that possibly dropped simply from this one announcement. Many picking out details from the album cover, the lead single’s title, the album title, and even the release date.
Many wondered if the album didn’t have a set release date due to the issue with the “Clancy” album, where it was delayed by a week, to possibly better suit the lore timeline. But the biggest thing was the obvious hint of “Breach” ending the story of Blurryface, hinted by the social media caption, “hello clancy”, “hello blurryface”, “let’s finish this”.
And of course, this being twenty one pilots, this new single announcement was only followed by more creepy and cryptic postings with the days leading up to June 12th, we’d get small little snippets on social media of Blurryface leaking through the band’s main accounts.
With the band posting what seems like innocent photos from their Clancy Tour, accompanied with Blurryface vocals in the background or odd captions, and the blurryface Twitter account itself was active once again to get the ball rolling. It was almost daily that the bf account and the band account would tweet something out of the ordinary and then quickly edit or delete the post, which had fans scrambling, trying to figure out what it all meant.
As the band posted a countdown for their single on their instagram, it wasn’t till 2 days before its release where fans got their first faint listen of the track, with the caption being, “I have a feeling that necromancer’s outside and i’m just trying to stay quiet”, which seemed to be what Tyler Joseph seemed to be singing in the video at a quiet level, but the next day was the same snippet of the track but now at full volume and with an extra line of the song added.
And when the day finally came, June 12, the twenty one pilots fan base had a field day. Not only did fans receive a new song accompanied by a music video, but the band also released tour dates for “THE CLANCY TOUR: BREACH 2025”, starting September 18th and touring 22 cities.
Via Twenty One Pilots’ Twitter
With many freaking out about the new tour drop, some were still focused on their single, “The Contract”. As usual, the first thing fans did was analyze the lyrics and music video to connect it in with the lore.
Some standout moments from the video were Clancy’s interactions with the torchbearer and the necromancer, and the contract sung about in the song. But lore aside, the lyrics themselves almost tell a story about the feeling of constant paranoia, being watched, and possibly not having a sense of security, “Is it light out yet? Better find out, bet. I’ma walk around the edge of the room and the bed. Where I hide my face, pace around. Better try to brеathe.”
Something else that didn’t go ignored was how beautifully shot the music video was. Every still and visual in the video was plastered all over social media, with many fans saying that this might be the band’s most beautiful music video yet, with so much detail, angle, and background imagery throughout the whole thing.
Fans were also happy to get a song where we once again got to hear Tyler’s screaming vocals in a track. Since we haven’t heard many screaming vocals in a while, it reminded a lot of people of their older music.
Within less than a week, the single was doing numbers. Hitting over 10 million streams on Spotify, and entered the top 20 on the US alternative radio.
You can check out Twenty One Pilots’ Breach tour here. https://www.twentyonepilots.com/tour
I am a photographer, musician, and cosplayer, based in Austin! I spend a lot of time traveling around for events, and am constantly creating things, listening to music, playing bass guitar, or finding new hobbies to indulge in. I love being surrounded by music, and you can almost always catch me listening to some emo or pop-punk music.
