Illusory Walls is the fourth studio album by American emo band the World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, released October 8, 2021, by Epitaph Records.

This, as well as the year-long timeframe the album was made in, enabled the band to experiment a lot more with their writing, as opposed to past releases which were usually fully turned around in the span of a couple months with ideas needing to be immediate in order to meet strict deadlines.

[18] That changed lineup includes the reduction of the band from three guitarists to just one,[19] though the mix is regarded as no less full or intricate,[19] with Beats Per Minute's Rob Hakimian even saying the album adds "a lot more guitars ... to their already-dense sound.

[16][21] Overall though, the band's core sound remains the same: "[David] Bello and Katie Dvorak still trade vocal duties, guitars still loop, and sudden climaxes are still the backbone".

Opening track "Afraid to Die" subverts the band's name to depict a story of people struggling under capitalism, though with a note of hopefulness suggested by the song's string-filled finish.

[2] The whole album takes the same anti-capitalistic stance,[2] with depictions of protagonists who struggle with low incomes,[2] medication costs,[16] homelessness,[2] consumerism,[2] and various failed attempts to cope with these things such as drugs, religion, and self-help.

[23] Beats Per Minute's Rob Hakimian said that 20-minute closing track "Fewer Afraid" is "a perfect way to underline an album so overloaded with emotion and sheer sonic weight that you sometimes wonder how they manage to keep it chugging so frictionlessly", and "Illusory Walls is a definitive document of the power of their combined ability and belief.