#Imagine dragons album smoke and mirrors full#
#Imagine dragons album smoke and mirrors download#

There are guitars on вЂњSmoke + Mirrors,вЂќ sure, but theyвЂ™re just part of a craftily assembled package that seems designed for listeners who donвЂ™t especially care about guitars.ДЄnd here the package is craftier than ever. Imagine Dragons makes rock that functions more or less as EDM, with the same sleek synth textures and throbbing rhythms and, most important, the same emotional fever pitch as huge hits by Calvin Harris and Swedish House Mafia. ItвЂ™s no accident that this band is one of the few rock acts making commercial waves at a moment dominated by pop and electronic dance music. (If you canвЂ™t join вЂem, the idea seemed to be, pay вЂem a reported $8 million to at least get close to вЂem.) One answer is that the album is another demonstration of the shrewd market strategy we saw in action at last weekвЂ™s Grammy Awards, where Imagine Dragons - presumably either uninvited or unavailable to appear on the CBS telecast - teamed with Target to present a live performance of its new single, вЂњShots,вЂќ during a commercial break.

#Imagine dragons album smoke and mirrors full#

Why, then, if this dude is so miserable - вЂњdepressed as hell,вЂќ as he recently confessed to Billboard - does вЂњSmoke + MirrorsвЂќ already feel like the most bombastic record weвЂ™ll hear this year? Full of fist-pumping choruses and foot-stomping grooves, it plays like one long pep rally hardly what youвЂ™d expect from a cursed man. вЂњFirst comes the blessing of all that you dreamed / But then comes the curses of diamonds and rings,вЂќ he moans in вЂњGold,вЂќ from the new Imagine Dragons album, вЂњSmoke + Mirrors.вЂќ The title track elaborates on that bruising disappointment, invoking вЂњa dream that comes crashing down on me.вЂќ Nearly a year after вЂњRadioactiveвЂќ finally dropped off the tally, though, Reynolds seems to think doomsday has only just begun. Album DescriptionSuccess has been rough for Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons, the Las Vegas-based rock band that sold over 2 million copies of its 2012 debut, вЂњNight Visions,вЂќ thanks to inescapable hits such as вЂњItвЂ™s TimeвЂќ and вЂњRadioactive.вЂќ A dubstep-dipped welcome to a post-apocalyptic age, the latter spent 87 weeks on BillboardвЂ™s Hot 100, longer than any other song in the chartвЂ™s history. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. В© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo More info These guys are shameless and that's what makes them more fun than your average arena rockers. 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. This separates ID from the Killers, who never met a big idea they didn't like. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Buy the album Starting at $6.99Д¬onspicuously 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 album smoke and mirrors download#

Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.