Review Summary: Smoke+Misses
Imagine Dragons proved with their debut album Night Visions, they have a knack for creating big songs with big themes that do very well commercially, sadly that's about nearly all they proved bar their first three songs on the track list which boasted exciting and well-conceived arrangements with an electronic edge. What followed however were repackaged, inferior versions of said songs that showed a lack of scope, diversity and Imagination (no pun intended). As this was a common complaint, the Las Vegas born band seemed to have taken notice and that certainly shows in their sophomore album release but it appears as though something has been lost in translation.
Where critics brought up a lack of song diversity in their music, Imagine Dragons sounds like they mistook this as genre diversity as this has led to Smoke+Mirrors having a serious sonic personality disorder. The album sporadically jumps from different rock sub-genres that listening to it in full Is an abnormal and majorly unpleasant experience, because of this the flow of the album is seriously damaged, discouraging just about any want to listen to it as a whole. While nearly every song sounds different they almost all are the product of formulaic song writing and are filled with empty and clichéd lyrics about love, loss, ambition, motivation etc. there are however a few exceptions.
"Polaroid" is one such example, a self-realisation song that examines presumably Dan Reynolds past and lyrically involves beating himself up about his mistakes but not allowing them to prevent him from doing what he loves, while that sounds clichéd the result is far more interesting you would expect all the while never sounding like he is drowning in self-pity or whining to the listener, it’s one of the slower paced songs on the album and possesses the best vocals and lyrics to be found here. "Shots" is a solid opening track and the best of the three singles released at the time of this review, with a sound reminiscent of their debut more than any other song on the album, it should please fans of their previous wok. "Trouble" see's the band try their hand at folk rock, some well-placed horn sections and backing vocals with a fast paced military style percussion leads to a result that is far better than their attempt at gospel rock in the generic anthem single "I Bet my Life". The closing track "The Fall" is the longest and potentially the best song here, it shows Imagine Dragons at their most creative, with expansive string arrangements and an outro that instrumentally resembles a combination of M83 and Snow Patrol with Bon Iver vocals, it is by far the most ambitious and imaginative track on the album.
Despite what is a thematically absent album which lacks any colossal hits like its predecessor or holds any songs as good as "Radioactive" or "It's Time", it's rock sub-genre hopping reveals moments of intuition and more than competent song writing such as the guitar solo in "Hopeless Opus" or the musical ambition shown in "The Fall". The heavy screeching guitars in "I'm so Sorry" and "Friction" and folk pop rock "Trouble" shows potentially good directions for the band if they focused themselves more without the generic song structures and lyrics, but as it stands Smoke+Mirros is a hit and miss album in an identity crisis, with underwhelming singles that will likely only please devoted fans of the band.
