Twenty One Pilots - Vessel (2013)
How's about that? For this album, they mostly abandon the terrible production of previous releases, going as far to re-record several songs from "Regional at Best" for this album, which is great because I thought that was the main thing holding down the songs on that album. The album has some nice and relatable lyrics about depression, pain, the works, you know how it goes, but it also has plenty of lyrics that I'd consider a "miss", like "Is it time to move our feet to an introspective beat? It ain't the speakers that bump hearts, it's our hearts that make the beat" from "Holding On to You" which dampens the track a bit, because it sounds like some shit your best friend's sister wrote in her poetry book when y'all were 14 and she was writing "Twilight" fanfiction, but just like nearly every track on here, I wouldn't exactly be racing to change the radio station if it came on while commuting, especially in the case of "House of Gold", a particularly lovely song about vocalist Tyler Joseph's love for his mother and wanting her to be happy, which can be considered TOP's "Hey Mama", sorta.
The problem preventing me from giving this album a higher rating is that the music, while adventurous, can be a little bit too vanilla, making me wish that they had taken more risks than to just churn out some pretty alright pop tunes with rap verses about depression that I don't really vibe with, outside of the noteworthy "Car Radio" for exploring that awful feeling when you feel like complete shit and don't have music or -anything- to distract you with, as your thoughts consume you and inevitably lead to an existential crisis, but hey, those piercing synths that kick in towards the end of the track distract me from enjoying the fucking song and make ME wish I was sitting alone in silence!! Ah well, at least it's followed by the infectious "Semi-Automatic" to try to atone for the previous track's shortcomings. All in all, this album's full of catchy, sometimes offensively non-offensive music that's sure to serve quite a few tracks into this year's "Now That's What I Call Dentist Waiting Room Music!" compilation album, but shows that Twenty One Pilots have a knack for writing tunes that get stuck in your ears, even if you're not that likely to have them in there for that long. When it comes to safe and clean pop music, you certainly can do a lot worse than this album.
7/10
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