In the summer of 2017, the duo Twenty One Pilots walked off stage in Columbus, Ohio, and simply vanished. Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun had just wrapped a massive tour behind their breakthrough album Blurryface, but rather than capitalize on that momentum, they went silent. No interviews, no social media, no new music. For a year, the outside world heard nothing. What fans didn't know was that Joseph was holed up in his home studio, building an entire fictional universe from scratch. Twenty One Pilots released Trench on October 5, 2018.
Recording Trench without outside voices
The result was Trench, the fifth studio album from Twenty One Pilots, released on October 5, 2018. It arrived on Fueled by Ramen and Elektra Records, and it was the first release from the revived Elektra Music Group. Joseph produced the record alongside Paul Meany of the band Mutemath, and the two of them, plus Dun, were the only people allowed to write songs. That was deliberate: Joseph wanted no outside influence, no label executives shaping the sound, no pressure to repeat the formula that had made Blurryface a global hit.
The recording sessions stretched from 2017 into 2018, split between Joseph's home studio in Columbus and the famous United Recording Studios in Hollywood, where Dun tracked his drums. But the music was only half the project. Before a single song was written, Joseph had already mapped out the world of Trench: a walled city called Dema, ruled by nine bishops, and the surrounding continent of Trench, where a rebel group called the Banditos wore yellow — a color the bishops could not see, perceiving it only as gray.
Dema, Nico and the bishops
The chief bishop, Nico, was not just a villain. He was Blurryface, the personification of Joseph's own insecurity, the same character who had haunted the previous album. In Trench, the story became explicit: Dema was a prison of the mind, and the bishops were the thoughts that keep a person trapped. The album explored mental health, suicide, and doubt, but wrapped those themes in a fantasy narrative that gave fans a way to talk about their own struggles without naming them directly.
Dema was a prison of the mind, and the bishops were the thoughts that keep a person trapped.
The first taste of this world came with the opening track 'Jumpsuit,' a song that shifts from a whisper to a scream and back again, mirroring the fight against self-doubt. Joseph's vocal performance was the centerpiece: he moves from a fragile falsetto to a full-throated cry, as if the song itself is trying to break free. The track ends not with a fade-out but with a seamless transition into 'Levitate,' a minimalist rap-rock piece that keeps the momentum going without a breath.
The pressure of finishing Trench nearly broke Joseph. In an interview with The New York Times, he said the project 'almost destroyed' him. The deadline for the finished album was set for August 15, 2018, and the months leading up to it were a blur of writing, recording, and second-guessing. He showed the completed album only to people close to him, and only after it was done, because he wanted honest reactions, not polite encouragement along the way.
When Trench finally arrived, it was clear the risk had paid off. The album reached the top of the charts in six countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Spain, and the Netherlands, and landed at number two in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Critics praised its ambition, its songwriting, and its cohesive production. Rock Sound named it the best album of the year. But the real victory was that Twenty One Pilots had turned a year of silence into a world their fans could live inside — and a story that would continue for years to come.