“City Walls” arrives with the weight of a closing chapter. Released on 12 September 2025 as the opener to Breach, it lands beside a near-ten-minute film directed by Jensen Noen.
And positioned by the band as the on-screen end of the Dema storyline that’s threaded through Blurryface, Trench, Scaled and Icy, and Clancy.
For the unfamiliar: Dema is the duo’s fictional stronghold ruled by nine bishops, an allegory for control and mental-health struggle, with Clancy as the would-be escapee.
The official video went live on the band’s channel at the album release, making the conclusion feel like an event rather than a footnote.
On screen, the story picks up where the Clancy-era clips left it: Dema under lockdown as the Banditos mount a breach of the city; the Torchbearer leads the push while Clancy ascends the central tower to confront Nico/Blurryface.
The short film stitches in explicit recalls to “Heavydirtysoul,” “Jumpsuit,” and “Levitate,” as if the bishops are trying to fold him back into the old script.
After the confrontation, Clancy pulls a red robe around his shoulders, the bishops’ colour, momentarily blurring the line between liberation and rule; the Torchbearer refuses to follow, underscoring the split.
In the coda, a voice observes “that’s not Clancy up there anymore… he’s out there somewhere,” and promises “we will try again,” as the opening bars associated with “Heavydirtysoul” rise on the soundtrack, looping the myth back to its beginning.
From the first bar, the record sets a stance. The drum language is muscular without bluster, the production widescreen and clean in a way consistent with Tyler Joseph and Paul Meany’s partnership, with Adam Hawkins and Joe LaPorta continuing their mix-and-master tandem across this era.
Lyrically, it opens pugnaciously and then widens. Short phrases do a lot of work: “Square up with me” establishes intent, “Pair up with me” pivots from lone resolve to recruitment, and the image “my smile wraps around my head” sketches a split self in a single stroke.
Those micro-turns carry the verse into a chorus that invites someone to show the way around the walls rather than just through them.
Each fragment is brief enough to keep velocity but pointed enough to fix the theme.
You hear “Entertain my faith” arrive like a deliberate echo across years, a phrase with its own lineage in the band’s catalogue.
It isn’t nostalgia for its own sake. In this setting, it reads as a message to listeners who have followed the story and to first-timers who need a simple rule of engagement: hold enough belief to make the push, but test it in daylight.
On screen, the lyrics feel literal. Noen’s film splices touchstones from earlier videos into a single passage that finally clears, then leaves a humane residue rather than a fairy-tale bow.
The closing exchange makes that explicit. After the last confrontations, a voice notes that the figure on the tower is “not Clancy” anymore, that he is “out there somewhere,” and promises “we will try again,” which is a quietly devastating definition of recovery. It honours the work while admitting the cycle.
Ahead of release, Tyler Joseph teased that “City Walls” would be the most expensive video of their career, with coverage today repeating a budget north of one million dollars.
That number is less chest-thump than a clue to scale. You can see the money on screen in the staging and continuity with the past, which is why the ending lands like a ceremonial close to a long story rather than a quick tie-off.
Global reaction resolves into our conundrum: does the spectacle deepen the song or distract from it?
On one side, the craft, scale, and stitched callbacks make the ending feel earned; the mini-movie explicitly recreates past visuals and caps the narrative in a near-ten-minute sweep.
On the other hand, that very grandeur and the million-dollar price tag tied to a lore-dense finale raise the fair question of whether the film risks overpowering a track that can stand on its own.
That spread feels right for a duo whose discography invites interpretation rather than doctrine.
“City Walls” was released on Fueled By Ramen, written and produced by Tyler Joseph and Paul Meany, mixed by Adam Hawkins, mastered by Joe LaPorta, clocking five minutes and twenty-two seconds.
Taken together with the album closer “Intentions,” it functions as a handshake between closure and whatever comes next.
We appreciate the fact that the song chooses clarity over all else. It squares up without swagger, then invites you in. The fight language is there, but so is the invitation.
The chorus feels less like a siege song and more like a plan for daylight.
The video confirms that tone and refuses tidy finality in favour of a more honest promise. Try again.
That line is where “City Walls” earns its keep, and why it will live past the fireworks of release week.
You might also like:
- The Contract – lyrics breakdown and lore context
- Drum Show – lyrics, meaning, and Josh’s vocal moment
- Backslide – duality, regret, and hope in the Clancy arc
- Overcompensate – return to Trench motifs, first Clancy-era single
- Next Semester – punk-tilted single and setup for Clancy
- The Craving (Jenna’s Version) – intimate, catalog-linking ballad
