FEATURE:
Second Spin
Imagine Dragons - Smoke + Mirrors
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A band who have never…
really got the respect and critical backing they deserve are Imagine Dragons. The Las Vegas band consist of lead singer Dan Reynolds, guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee, and drummer Daniel Platzman. Their debut album, Night Visions, was released in 2012. I think that the follow-up, Smoke + Mirrors, has some great music on it that means people should give it a second spin. Not that critics all mauled the album. It is that Smoke + Mirrors got mixed reaction. I love the two opening tracks, Shots and Gold. I get swept up in the infectious spirit of the single, I Bet My Life. Aside from a couple of weaker tracks in the middle of the album, there is enough solidity and quality on Smoke + Mirrors to tempt people in – and make sure that they are invested. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea, I feel Imagine Dragons are a band who can write simple and great songs. More Rock-driven and stripped compared to their debut album, Smoke + Mirrors is an album that performed very well commercially: it went to number one on the Billboard 200 in the United States, shifting more than 172,000 units; also debuting at number one on the UK Albums Chart and the Canadian Albums Chart. It is a pity that very few critics gave the 2015 album a positive review. There are some terrific tracks to be found. Smoke + Mirrors is another album that sold very well and was a chart success, yet the critical reaction was less enthused and glowing.
I shall point to some examples of what critics were saying about Smoke + Mirrors. Rolling Stone wrote this in their review:
“Let’s give Imagine Dragons credit where it’s due. On their multiplatinum 2012 debut, Night Visions, the Las Vegas act found a way to reheat old-fashioned arena-rock catharsis for the segmented pop world of the 2010s — fusing Coldplay’s heart-hugging balladry, Arcade Fire’s darkly heroic surge, neon Killers synths and elements of hip-hop, folk and EDM into something new. Their biggest hit, “Radioactive,” was a dour moaner that sounded like Chris Martin trying to write an Eminem ballad about the end of the world. In concert, they hammered away at massive drums, an annoying theatrical gambit that might be a portent of where mainstream “rock” is heading. Every time a Dragon bangs a floor tom, a member of Nickelback sheds a tear.
But being mildly inventive isn’t the same as being good, and Imagine Dragons hone all that eclectic energy into dreary anthems that aren’t much better than the flaming turds Creed used to light up on our collective doorstep back in the Nineties. Smoke + Mirrors builds on its predecessor’s multifaceted bombast. Like Night Visions, it’s overseen by producer Alex Da Kid, who usually works with stars like Rihanna and Nicki Minaj. Throughout the album, the genre mash-ups come fast and furious — from the New Wave-tinged dance-rock of “Shots” to “Friction,” a whirl of Eastern strings, art-metal yammering, R&B Auto-Tune and electronic knock-hockey. There are moments of lithe prettiness like “Summer” and descents into desolation like the goth slog “Dream.” There’s even straight-up rock on the Black Keys-indebted garage-blues grinder “I’m So Sorry.”
All this finds a focal point in singer Dan Reynolds, a 27-year-old family man with a sad, stout heart the size of Utah. Success hasn’t done much to pick up his afflicted mood. “Who can you trust when everything you touch turns to gold?” he sings over the glowering synths and grim drums of “Gold,” sounding a little like Drake’s pale shadow. “It Comes Back to You” has a pleasantly skipping tune with a Talking Heads guitar line that suggests sunny vibes — but nope: Instead he finds himself pondering “all the things that I could be/I think I learned in therapy.”
Reynolds’ background as a practicing Mormon plays a big role in his music. He never goes Full Jesus, but spiritual overtones come through all over the place as he lunges through the darkness in search of redemption. On the title track, Edge-y guitars shimmer and strings slam as he entreats “I wanna believe” to an unspecified “dream-maker/life-taker.”
The combination of self-pity, grandiosity and leaden spirituality can get trying. And all those attempts at musical worldliness can feel like stylistic tourism. “I’ve told a million lies, but now I’ll tell a single truth,” Reynolds sings on “I Bet My Life,” a gospel-sampling, foot-stomping anthem that serves as the album’s 72-ounce Big Gulp of arms-aloft hope-folk. He wants so badly to travel the righteous path, and his soul may one day bask in the glow of eternal wisdom. But his music has a long way to go”.
Prior to wrapping things up, there is another review I want to highlight. AllMusic is a site I rely on quite a bit when it comes to reviews and information. This is their take on Imagine Dragons’ second album:
“Conspicuously absent from the laundry list of influences the Imagine Dragons so often cite is the Killers, the only other Las Vegas rock band of note. Imagine Dragons downplay the glamour the Killers found so alluring but they share a taste for the overblown, something that comes to full fruition on their second album, Smoke + Mirrors. Bigger and bolder than 2012's Night Visions, Smoke + Mirrors captures a band so intoxicated with their sudden surprise success that they've decided to indulge in every excess. They ratchet up their signature stomp -- it's there on "I Bet My Life," the first single and a song that's meant to reassure fans that they're not going to get something different the second time around -- but they've also wisely decided to broaden their horizons, seizing the possibilities offered by fellow arena rockers Coldplay and Black Keys. Despite the bloozy bluster of "I'm So Sorry" -- a Black Keys number stripped of any sense of R&B groove -- the group usually favors the sky-scraping sentiment of Coldplay, but where Chris Martin's crew often seems pious, there's a genial bros-next-door quality to Imagine Dragons that deflates their grandiosity.
Certainly, Smoke + Mirrors is rock so large it's cavernous -- the reverb nearly functions as a fifth instrument in the band -- but the group's straight-faced commitment to the patently ridiculous has its charm, particularly because they possess no sense of pretension. This separates ID from the Killers, who never met a big idea they didn't like. Imagine Dragons like big sounds and big emotions -- and, if they can muster it, big hooks -- and the commitment to style over substance gives them ingratiating charm, particularly when they decide to thread in slight elements of EDM on "Shots" (something that surfaces on the title track as well), or Vampire Weekend's worldbeat flirtations on "Summer." Imagine Dragons purposefully cobble their sound together from these heavy-hitters of alt-rock, straightening them into something easily digestible for the masses but, like so many commercially minded combos, how they assemble these familiar pieces often results in pleasingly odd combinations. These guys are shameless and that's what makes them more fun than your average arena rockers”.
Even though I am not completely hooked by Smoke + Mirrors, it is an album that has merit and some excellent music. I do wonder whether many critics who reviewed the album in 2015 would change their scores and opinions if they approached it again now. Smoke + Mirrors is a perfectly decent album that you should check out. A band that attempts to reach and appeal to as many people as possible, there is something for everyone on Smoke + Mirror. If you have not heard it until now, then it is a good and pleasurable way…
TO spend fifty minutes.