Rawfear

Album: Breach (2025)
Charted: 88
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Songfacts®:

  • "Rawfear" is exactly what it says on the tin: fear stripped down to its rawest, most relentless form.

    Twenty One Pilots have always had a knack for turning anxiety into music you can nod, tap, and occasionally dance to - think "Stressed Out" or "Nico And The Niners" - and this track continues that proud tradition. The song treats fear as both an ever-present shadow and a relentless engine, likening it to an "empty Uzi," a weapon built for rapid fire, only here it's loaded with nothing but menace. The only option is to keep moving, hoping to outrun it before the magazine fills again.
  • Tyler Joseph wrote the song himself and co-produced it with Paul Meany, continuing their successful collaborative relationship. Meany, the lead singer of Mutemath, has been a key creative partner for Twenty One Pilots since 2017, co-producing much of their work in this era.
  • One of the most striking touches on "Rawfear" is the opening: the screams of Tyler's daughters. It's intimate, unsettling, and captures the idea that fear is inherited, immediate, and inescapable. Joseph explained: "I just went up to them and said, 'Girls, scream at me as loud as you can.' And I have a voice recording on my phone."
  • Once the drums kick in, the song shifts into a full-body experience: head-nodding, chest-thumping, yet still anxious, perfectly mirroring the theme of being propelled forward by fear itself. Stayfreeradio described it as "equal parts driving and anxious," which is as good a description as any for a band that's spent years turning dread into hooks, from the swirling tension of "Levitate" to the anxiety cleansing of "Chlorine."
  • As the second track on Twenty One Pilots' eighth album, Breach, "Rawfear" serves as a momentum builder after the ceremonial opener "Drum Show." The record continues the duo's exploration of mental health and internal conflict, propelling its narrative with an anxious intensity.

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