Review Summary: Oh, the wretched path curiosity can take one down.
Imagine Dragons always came off as an inoffensive pop rock band, personally. Nothing was spectacular, yet nothing was horrible. Out of pure curiosity alone I decided to listen to the song "Thunder," and it was truly an experience. The voice modulation was horrendous, the melody was abhorrent, and the song was so clumsy and poorly constructed at a basic level that it left me in a state of tears out of sheer hilarity. Imagine Dragons had finally caught my attention and I listened to Evolve hoping for more material as laughable as "Thunder." I can only wish I had seen the warning signs of "Thunder" and avoided this audible cluster***.
Nothing on this album is done correctly and almost every failure is done in the least amusing way possible. The album is composed like it has the depth of the challenger deep, but it actually has the depth of a kiddie pool at best. The lyrics are so bland and boring that they don't even truthfully deserve the slight mention they're receiving in this review. Every song aurally belongs to a cliche of modern pop that has been done to death, such as ambient synths on the ballads or stomping and clapping on the stereotypical, "persevere through adversity," anthem. If a song doesn't belong to a cliche, then it is an awkward amalgamation of samples and instruments that don't mix and kill all potential atmosphere. Throughout the album many emotions are attempted to convey a feeling of depth and not a single one is done correctly. Every single chorus is built and performed to be larger than life, but every chorus is either weak or has awful and uninteresting melodies. Instead of being atmospheric the album sounds clunky and extremely melodramatic. Every melody at a basic level is poorly constructed and would sound abominable no matter who sung the song ("Believer" instantly comes to mind). Even the transitions between verses and choruses are awkward. They are abrupt, disjointed, and flow about as well as water through a clogged pipe.
Even if the instrumentals were flawless and actually portrayed the hefty, larger than life feel the album would still fail though. This album's complete failure hinges on the awful vocal performance from Dan Reynolds. Reynolds tries, emphasis on tries, to utilizes a wider vocal range than he has the ability to. Reynolds' voice is not powerful, it is not vulnerable, it is not gentle, it is nothing anything more than scratchy, whiney mess incapable of achieving any emotion Reynolds attempts throughout the duration of Evolve. On almost every song there is a notable moment in which Reynolds' vocal delivery hinges on, and sometimes is, downright unlistenable.
For instance, on the chorus of the lead single "Believer" Reynolds sings in a higher register. However, his singing is so screechy and unnatural one would feel a pain on their throat just listening to the song. On pre-chorus of the opener "I Don't Know Why," he belts so ineffably horrible it sounds like it was recorded on the first take and no one had the heart to tell Reynolds he just sounded like a whale screaming in agony. The greatest example of Reynolds performance butchering a song to pieces is "Rise Up". The song is composed and played to convey the feeling of triumph, and on a regular album the song would be a cliche, throwaway filler track, but on this album it turns into a truly wretched track. While passionate, Reynold's voice is so screechy and the notes are so far out of his register the chorus becomes absolutely unlistenable. Even when the song awkwardly transitions into a slower, softer tone Reynolds voice is too whiny to accurately convey delicacy. Throughout the course of the album Reynolds sings in falsetto and the delivery is so hamfisted it is almost incomprehensible any sound engineer would allow it. The falsetto emanates a feeling of fabrication, almost as if the only reason Reynolds attempted falsetto was because it was a trend in modern pop. His vocals are at the front of the mix, they demand attention, but all they do is make the album insufferable.
This album could've been something decent. Create the melodies to tailor Reynold's niche voice, avoid cliche instrumentation, work on the flow between segments of songs and there could've potentially been something decent here. Oh wait, that would mean changing the entire album. Maybe there isn't much salvageable here. In conclusion, this album is a poorly constructed, poorly performed instrumentally, and especially poorly performed vocally. This album is a failure on every conceivable level and there is nothing salvageable about Evolve. Evolve is so obviously broken that it is baffling the album was released.
