Music Review: Imagine Dragons

It’s not always a compulsion to write a review about mainstream rock bands just because you have this enormous love for the sound of heavy guitars and thrashing drums and screaming vocals. Sometimes it’s good to ‘expand’ your region of musical taste and try something new and fresh out of the CD cover. So I heard about this new breed of musicians from my oh-god-I-cannot-handle-that-noisy-crap friends, distinctly about this one particular song which has become the so-called ‘song of the year’. It’s all over the internet. With their explosive chartbuster ‘Radioactive’, I present to you the newest and currently the coolest indie band on the turf – Imagine Dragons.

Imagine Dragons has a completely different ‘feel’ than most of the bands in this genre like Coldplay or Arcade Fire or The Killers or even Mumford & Sons. And honestly speaking, I wouldn’t mind deleting Coldplay and off this world’s ‘I think I’m gonna cry, these songs are so beautiful’ playlist. I mean get over it already! So the first song I heard was, again, Radioactive, which is undoubtedly the most popular track of their debut album (Night Visions). But I wouldn’t call it that. Two more tracks into this album and you’ll find more fascinating music you may not have heard in a long time. Somehow this group has produced a new thrillingly ‘percussive’ form of stadium anthem-ish music which I’m sure I have never heard before. The energy is amazing and the vocals (Dan Reynolds) especially, just add to the album’s raw emotional instability. As you go through Night Visions, it effortlessly drifts from the depth and power of Radioactive, through the celebratory On Top Of The World and emotionally-driven wailing of Amsterdam.

Facts: This Las Vegas based band is lead by frontman Dan Reynolds and blah blah blah – not important. What’s important is that the way I see it, Imagine Dragons will give you every kind of music you would want to listen to when you go through a series of emotions during the day. What you expect from a group of hardworking musicians is to soothe, energize and refresh your mind and this band will give you just that. Not too much, not too less – just the appropriate required amount. We all have our favourite artists, bands and internet rockstars rotting in our ancient perfect playlists. I say recreate them. Let them be imperfect with startling melodies by artists no one has ever heard of. It’s time to let these dragons take over you for a change.

Must Download: Radioactive, It’s Time, Bleeding Out, Fallen, Amsterdam, Demons,…the whole album! That’s a better option.

- Harshil Bhardwaj

(Dream Compass Team)