Review: An Isolated Mind – I’m Losing Myself

Style: progressive death metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Dylan
Recommended for fans of: mental illness Opeth
Country: California, United States
Release date: 16 March, 2019

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the Missed Albums of Jan-Jun 2019 issue of The Progressive Subway.]

A death metal concept album about struggles with bipolar disease is bound to be ambitious. Any mental illness is no joke, and bipolarity is no exception. 

What An Isolated Mind does is to convey all of the emotions present in your head when suffering this illness into a very mood drifting album. The mood constantly switches between the abnormal highs and the ugliest lows in each song. Extreme dissonance, and a general tone of bat shit insanity can be immediately followed by the most beautiful acoustic melodies, only for the insanity to come back again and hit harder than before. 

This idea of build up, break down, bigger build up, bigger break down, is played with for 35 mins. It is until then when you’re gonna stop listening to actual songs. In its most tense moment, two tracks come in to play; the title track I’m Losing Myself and it’s follow up I’ve Lost Myself. They’re both ambient-sy tracks that pretty much convey everything the album has conveyed thus far. The 8 minute long title track starts with a very clean melody which gets progressively more and more dissonant, desperate, and insane. At its highest point of insanity comes in I’ve Lost Myself. What this track does is convey the fall out of what we can interpret as the ultimate breakdown that “lost” our protagonist. It goes on for 17 minutes and hardly has any music, but it’s so ingeniously built up that I believe it remains appropriate for the album. 

So yes, the album is, in my opinion, an achievement. But you either have to accept the fact that you’re sitting for the whole thing as an experience, or only get half an hour of actual music. Whatever you choose to do, I’m Losing Myself won’t fail to deliver. 

Recommended tracks: it’s an all or nothing
You may also like: The Reticent
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

An Isolated Mind is:
– Kameron Bogges (vocals, guitars, bass, synths, drums)