The end is the beginning, and a torchbearer's light marks the space between. For over a decade, twenty one pilots has woven this "Dema" narrative - this fictional world they've created - through their music. In Breach, their eighth album, the music, lyrics, and the "conclusion" of "City Walls" fold back on themselves - a rhythm with nowhere to go but through, on repeat. Over ten years of fan theories have reached a seeming conclusion to the imaginary world. I, for one, have enjoyed the ride.

Breach, both the album and the duo, refuses neat resolutions, instead tracing a drag path of relentless loops of thought and emotion that mirror anxiety and depression. In "City Walls," Tyler Joseph revisits the pleading words "entertain my faith" from Holding Onto You, staking the album's claim: survival is messy, cyclical, and never guaranteed, but motion itself matters. This is musically evident in the close of "City Walls," where notes from "Heavydirtysoul" serve as an outro. Darkness presses in, but persistence, grounded in faith, endures. The question still echoes, "can you save my heavy dirty soul?"

Musically, Breach is taut, urgent, and unflinching. Joseph's voice shifts from intimate falsetto to full-throated screams, while Josh Dun's drumming drives a pulse that is both insistent and twitchy. My favorite track, "Drum Show," explodes with kinetic intensity, demanding attention, while "Downstairs" and "Rawfear" crawl through confined, shadowed spaces. The latter two capture well the claustrophobia of internal struggle. In "Rawfear," the tempo at one point accelerates, and I faintly hear traces of Blurryface's "Doubt" buried in the mix. The production, helmed by Mutemath's Paul Meany, seamlessly fuses electronic textures with organic instrumentation, carrying listeners within the loops themselves. The cycle continues.

The album's architecture reinforces its theme of repetition. The narrative is bookended, with motifs returning in refracted forms, reminding us that patterns persist, often unnoticed. This is most striking in closer "Intentions," whose melody, when reversed, becomes the backbone of "Truce" from Vessel. This clever callback, paired with the spiritual echo in "City Walls," frames Breach not as a standalone statement, but as another orbit in a continuous cycle. The music bends back on its history, as life bends back on itself, insisting the past is always part of the present. The middle of the record experiments with indie pop-rock stylings on "Robot Voices," features more key changes than in prior works, strong piano lines in "Cottonwood," and Joseph leaning into his falsetto frequently. This keeps the album dynamic, but sacrifices some of the anticipated cohesion.

Lyrically, Breach is raw and confessional. Joseph inhabits the same tension as his audience: fear, longing, and the unending effort to keep moving. Darkness is omnipresent, yet the songs offer no surrender, only negotiation. Each moment of melody or rhythm reinforces a core truth: surviving the loop is an act of defiance. "Rawfear" confesses that the lesson Tyler has learned is, "not pass or fail, but a poisonous progression." There is no tidy escape from depression and anxiety, only persistence, which resonates with quiet power. This power is amplified in the jaw-dropping, narrative-closing music video for "City Walls," a must-watch for its stunning visuals and conclusion to the Dema lore. In it, we see the power of community and the fight of our insecurities/fears that begins and ends with each new day.

Elsewhere, drummer Josh Dun is featured vocally in the bridge of "Drum Show," a song about youthful abandon, jamming in your car with nowhere else you'd rather be. The lines, "I've been this way/I want to change," are driven home convincingly by Joseph's desperate scream on the final line, inviting listeners to unleash their own primal yawp. The old demo, "Downstairs," is given new life here, with Joseph begging for mercy: "I want to be the one after your own heart/And I might doubt that process like I doubt the start." This is a band, typically guarded, at its most overtly spiritual in years. Joseph speaks for many, balancing the desire to believe in a benevolent God with the fear of divine judgment. In "Garbage," he admits, "I feel like garbage…would you move closer if I grew quieter?/Maybe this is you/maybe you don't fix and you like it like this." Faith. Doubt. The cycle continues.

While Breach shines in its ambition, not every track lands with precision. The narrative bookends of the opening and closing songs satisfy, but the second half stumbles slightly. "Center Mass" has chaotic energy that overwhelms its promising concept, lacking focus. It aims for a free-flowing jazz vibe but falters with Dun's high-energy drumming and Joseph's scattered flow, resulting in a genre mash that misses the mark. "Days Lie Dormant" suffers from repetitive melodies, feeling like a lesser echo of past work. To a lesser extent, "Tally" is an earnest pop song trying too hard to sound gritty. The production needed fewer electronics and more edge, or a full commitment to pop-rock, but straddling both weakens its potential. These tracks, while not bad, pale against Breach's highs and don't match Clancy's polish -- a testament to the predecessor's strength.

Breach is a study in motion -- an unbroken circle of tension, release, and reflection. It asks listeners to inhabit its spaces fully, to feel the recurrence and confines of struggle, not as defeat but as a measure of resilience. The album is thrilling, uncomfortable, and necessary: a soundscape that refuses closure, demanding attention with nearly every turn.

Ultimately, Breach closes the Dema loop, perhaps frustratingly for some, but for me, it's been a remarkable journey. The album moves in circles, folding back on itself -- a rhythm with nowhere to go but through. The end is the beginning, and only a torchbearer's light marks the tension between.