Mental Collapse Nervous Breakdown

*Mental Collapse - Nervous Breakdown* is the eighth official album released by Billy Hill & The Optimists, appearing between *Twilight and Thunderstorms* and *Inserenity and Infernos*. Mental Collapse is another standalone release, and similarly to *The Roar of a Distant Storm*, it expands on a story featured in the barriers trilogy, yet in a generally different style to that of the barriers trilogy. Mental Collapses sound is chaotic and stressful, and most tracks are made up of several scrambled samples. As the album goes on, the music degrades and the songs get shorter during the 'decline period' which is a set of songs (2 to 12) where the track lengths decrease, the other 5 songs being more coherent. Due to the story of the album and connection to barriers and other story albums, it often pulls directly from other albums.

## Background

"I watched the sky open and the horizon burn a bloody red as wormholes ripped through the sky." - Album Description.

Mental Collapse is a 16-track album which similarly to TROADS, tells a single story connected to the barriers albums and A Trip Through the Wormhole in a linear fashion. As stated above, the music is confused and scrambled, set in a very different style to most of the albums up to this point. The samples vary just like the barriers albums, but some appear more than others. Due to the nature of most of the songs on the album consisting of chaos, the more coherent songs at the beginning and end can come by surprise, especially the two long drone tracks at the end, yet they do not change the pace too much and fit the mood the album has declined to by that point.

Some songs have similarities and can be almost grouped together, such as track one and three which share a similarly tense and harsh yet sill coherent tone, as well as the four ending songs, both of which can be seen as duos, moreso the last two which use the same sample and effects, as well as both of their names being scrambled versions of the title. Like the stories shared in the barriers album, this one may be distressing and you may want to turn back.

## Overview and Story

The story of Mental Collapse is a continuation of the story of the unnamed from parts 1, 5, and 9 of barriers. The story picks up right where it is left off in Shattering Sky, the first sample of Red Horizon being very similar in sound and effects only strengthens this connection. The phrase 'Red Horizon' is also mentioned in the track description of Shattering Sky, directly referencing Mental Collapse. The full barriers compilation album also references Mental Collapse in the description for part 9. The second half of the song is tense and horrifying,

From it won't stop to the end of the album, Mental Collapse is about the infection, degradation, and death of the unnamed. Seeing the aftermath of the break and seeing all of the dead and the victorious unconscious, he was infected by a spirit which took over his form in order to act as a guide for them. This process while beneficial for everyone who the universe has selected if the right person is chosen (in the case of our heroes, the universe couldn't have chosen a better option,) but for the chosen, it is a very painful process which destroys them as their conscience is transferred into the spirit, and both of them receive every memory of all who were selected, dead or alive.

This process will allow the spirit to know every detail about these journeys and knowledge about the past and future so that it can effectively ensure victory. Though a spirit can handle this process although not without intense strain, a more mortal being such as a pandorian cannot handle this though, and it is this flood which is one of the most harmful parts of this process. Although track 4 is called the flood, the process occurs right away and is only amplified after a short time, hence track 4's title and how it pulls many samples directly from barriers songs, a few being Umbra Baptisia Australis, Stolen Heart, She Returns, and Fleeting Eclipse.

After this flood, there is a perceived regression where the past is burnt onto the mind and the mood begins to change. It only goes downhill from there, and reaches a tipping point, where everything only spirals further and further. Spiralling spiralling portrays this constant downwards spiral, as the track only gets more harsh as it goes on, pulling samples directly from stage 6 of Everywhere Away from Fading Lonely Despair. Mental Collapse pulls from many places, all across the Sunset Collective's discography.

It pulls multiple songs from EAFFLD Stage 6 and the in-the-making of album for stage 6 for spiralling, The EAFFLD Revised collection, Rapidly Fading Legacy, Greatest Hits Collection, The Roar of a Distant Storm, The first two Barriers Albums and Solar Eclipse on a March Evening, The Garden (extras), as well as from itself a couple of times. Pulling samples from previous albums is very intentional as it represents memories from all of these stories, ones which the music is based on or refers to flooding into the mind and crashing against each other, degraded as the mind decays.

Though the song 'Song for Juliette' may seem out of place, it is far from it. The pain can translate strong feelings, one of these being indignation, and for a couple that indignation is towards Juliette. This hate state continues to brutality dream, a song which is much more harsh than the prior, representing how the degradation can make emotions so much stronger as it progresses. Though not long after that, strong emotions begin to fade into only silence, as the flood stops and the mind begins to decay, starting the disintegration process.

This process is merely mental at first, the flood of so many new memories burning away from the victim's mind until there are only few remaining traces of themselves left, and then it becomes physical. They are lifted up into the air and begin to slowly dissolve, and then in their last few moments of clarity their fear comes to a peak, and they begin to burn away. A dramatic end to a short but devastating process, a process which only takes around two hours to completely kill a person, and that is what it does. The unnamed is killed and in their form in a similar way to Gemenii K's 'ascension' they are part of the spirit, however they are still dead and only their memories live on.

Mental Collapse aims to portray this entire process and it portrays the entire degradation process, and it does so quite well through its progression. The entire decline process portrays the feeling of a decaying mind, heavily based off the progression of EAFFLD's Post Awareness Stages, which is in turn heavily based off The Caretaker's Everywhere at the End of Time, an artist which was a massive influence for FadingSunset's work. Though the album has its weak points, it is still punchy and horrifying and achieves its goal of representing its story, in a better way than some barriers albums which try too hard to represent their story which overall effects the music.