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Mar 30, 2017These songs are crafted in the best sense of the word, with the lyrics delivering sublime twists that the music matches. As such, Mental Illness becomes something of a balm for troubled times; it's an album that finds reassurance within the darkest corners.
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Apr 3, 2017An album rooted in the low end of the emotional spectrum is a risk, but through fastidious instrumental detailing and lyrics that evince sympathy even when they’re at their most cutting, Mann crafts a melancholic atmosphere that is worth repeated listens, whether as a means for catharsis or as a well-crafted cloud to ease the punishing brightness of a too-sunny day.
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Apr 3, 2017This is a solid addition to Mann's estimable discography, the kind of record that sets a mood and sustains it for 39 craftsmanlike minutes.
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Mar 27, 2017While Mental Illness doesn’t stray too far from the beaten path, it does offer something new for seasoned Mann watchers.
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Mar 21, 2017For 44 minutes, Mann slips into the skin of someone walking an emotional tightrope, and it’s an act she pulls of with grace and conviction.
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Mar 21, 2017A compelling consistency of mood makes Metal Illness easy to get lost in. [May 2017, p.94]
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Apr 20, 2017Mental Illness is first and foremost an album about achieving self-sufficiency through trail and blunder. And in doing so, she once again stands tallest, and quietest, in an exceptionally consistent career.
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Mar 28, 2017Mann has earned her reputation as a master songwriter on the coherence of her artistic choices. As in good short stories, every element in her songs works to support a single theme.
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Apr 3, 2017Juxtaposing elegant chamber folk against the discord of lives out of balance, it’s musically more delicate than even her soft rock models.
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Mar 28, 2017Her lyrics are full of witty puns, comic exaggerations and double-entendres accented by her sense of timing and intonations. The lines drip with bon mots that begin straight and then bend unexpectedly.
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Q MagazineApr 12, 2017These are fine story-songs for any age, era or metal disposition. [Jun 2017, p.107]
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Mar 31, 2017Like the 1999 film Magnolia that earned Mann an Oscar nomination, Mental Illness would make a similarly engrossing mosaic of stories for the big screen.
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Mar 21, 2017Mann's best work has always lingered on such private reverie, and Mental Illness is one of her most ravishing and affecting hymns to solitude.
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Mar 29, 2017Mental Illness wallows in its troubles, and it’s an exquisite wallow.
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UncutMar 21, 2017Mental Illness is as elegantly dark as a wrought iron gate. [May 2017, p.35]
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Mar 28, 2017Mental Illness remains more of the same, never quite hitting any peaks, and never missing a step either.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 36 out of 43
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Mixed: 2 out of 43
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Negative: 5 out of 43
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Apr 22, 2017
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Apr 5, 2017
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Jul 2, 2020