Aimee Mann

Mental Illness

The interplay among tune, lyrics and production rewards repeated listens with ever more intricate emotional textures.

This is not a flash album, there are no virtuoso flourishes by any of the players. Every note has been carefully positioned to frame her voice in a sympathetic and supportive way and recorded simply and elegantly.

Mann's best work has always lingered on such private reverie, and Mental Illness is one of her most ravishing and affecting hymns to solitude.

The album’s music is intimate and reflective. Drums rarely figure alongside the acoustic guitar, piano and string arrangements which motor gently, and a compelling consistency of mood makes Mental Illness easy to get lost in.

Happily, all is not melancholy here. In fact, most of the tracks are upbeat. The songs’ characters may be unloved and disturbed, but aren’t we all?

Each of the 11 numbers is exquisitely sculpted, with the melody carrying a sense of subdued drama as it marches from verse to chorus to bridge. These songs are crafted in the best sense of the word, with the lyrics delivering sublime twists that the music matches.

While there’s a melancholy that filters through her soft waltzes, Mental 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.

Mental Illness is Aimee Mann’s quintessential statement, tempering the discord of life with elegant chamber folk. Mann fills her songs with ordinary people struggling against operatic levels of pain.

The crushingly blunt title is Aimee Mann’s sardonic acknowledgement of her reputation as a depressing songwriter, which she’s determined to exceed with this collection of “the saddest, slowest, most acoustic” songs possible.

Drawing closer to her country and folk foundations, and with the occasional addition of strings, Mann subtly changes tempo and pitch to keep sad, emotive music flowing steadily forward. Mental Illness remains more of the same, never quite hitting any peaks, and never missing a step either.