Twenty One Pilots

The debut from Ohio’s twenty one pilots is a genre-melding album that nods to their theatrical leanings (Arthur Miller’s play *All My Sons* inspired their name). Splashy, defiant songs fuse piano-bar pop sensibilities with 21st-century beats and grand exhibitions of emotion, as in the soaring chorus of the Bowie-echoing “Air Catcher” and the doo-wop-backed bravado of “Friend, Please.” Tyler Joseph’s knotty depictions of millennial angst on tracks like the ruminative “Taxi Cab” and the gritty “Isle of Flightless Birds” are forthright and poetic.

Twenty One Pilots - Twenty One Pilots review: twenty one pilots' debut manages to remain their most emotional, powerful, and best album yet