He separated from wife Aja Volkman, but the couple reunited in late 2018 after a seven-month break and welcomed a fourth child, son Valentine, the next fall. The album was written over a three-year period and much happened in Reynolds' life. “I’m finding it hard to love myself,” he sings on ”My Life." On “Lonely,” he offers: “These days, I’m becoming everything I hate.” The song ”Dull Knives" has Reynolds' almost screaming in anguish: “Won’t someone please save my life?” and one song has the sing-along chorus: “It’s OK to be not OK.”
The 13-track collection uses Reynolds' falsetto to great effect to explore different sonic landscapes, and his lyrics ache with a portrait of a man who has lost friends to cancer, had his personal life collapse and battled depression and addiction. “This record is primarily about taking action and rebuilding.” I spent a lot of my time embracing that self-pity and wallowing in it,” he says from his home in Las Vegas. “In a lot of ways I felt like my foundation was completely ripped from under me over the last decade. Lead singer, songwriter and lyricist Dan Reynolds has poured heartache, tragedy and his struggles with sobriety into the raw, confessional and searing “Mercury - Act 1,” a brave album from a band refusing to retreat into past hits. Inside is the sound of a man grappling with his own fall. The new Imagine Dragons album cover depicts a man falling through space, gravity gently pulling him down.