Review: Imagine Dragons “Smoke + Mirrors”
If you’ve listened to Imagine Dragons, odds are you are in one of two camps: you either enjoy them for their sheer theatrical bombast and radio-friendly hooks, or you dislike them for their genericness and their loose fitting to the term “rock.”
On Smoke + Mirrors, their second album, the band seems to be trying to copy Night Visions, their commercially successful, but critically lukewarm debut, just enough to please their legion of fans while also trying to change things up enough to escape classification and perhaps win the critics’ hearts.
The album does these things better in some places and worse in others. The catchy bombastic hooks from Night Visions are still in place, and they’re just as radio-and-stadium-friendly as ever–each song on this album has enough commercial viability to be a successful single. The experimentation that they allow to shine through works well on individual songs, but in some places the more experimental tracks flow sort of awkwardly between more traditional tracks.
Some of the best songs on this album are songs where the band breaks from what you would expect of them. Songs like “I’m So Sorry,” “Friction,” and “Gold” succeed on being different and unexpected. But even still, the album, like much of Imagine Dragons’ work, has the feel that we’ve heard this all before. In the end, the album isn’t bad, nor is it really good. But it’s entertaining enough.
Check out the album trailer below:
