Imagine Dragons!!

This band is off the hook! I think I found the source of a new playlist on my iPod. This band is plain amazing. They incorporate so many great musical aspects into one album. Their newly released feature album, Continued Silence, only has 6 songs, but they could all be top singles! One of its songs, It’s Time, was the first song that I heard from Imagine Dragons. Like always, it popped up on my Pandora station and now I’m furious that I hadn’t discovered them earlier. They would have made boring road trips ten times better! I think this band possesses many qualities of true talent. They sound like a blend between Mumford and Sons, Alex Clare, and the Wanted. They also add a certain level of electronic flavor that jazzes it up for me as a listener. While a lot of their songs seem to follow a distinct pattern, I cannot wait for them to release a whole line of new music.

                The hit single, It’s Time, called to me through my iPhone headphones.  Its indie-folk rock music was a nice contrast to the highly auto-tuned songs that so often pop up on my Pandora stations (which get skipped almost immediately). While the beginning starts off a little slow for my taste with some basic Mumford and Sons sounds, it quickly developed into its own little niche in the rock world. Throughout all their songs, they seem to start off with basic countermelodies (like a strum of high pitched guitar or repetitive rhythms) and build off from there into their passionate and unique vocals. They then stay at a relaxed, yet energized, level throughout the rest of the song. Check out what put Imagine Dragons on the map, with It’s Time (I’m going to have to warn you that the music video is mind-blowingly good):

                Like I said, though, this feature album really has no weaknesses! I highly encourage extra listening of this band because they’re style is so fresh. I feel like they are a Mumford and Sons 2.0 with added dubstep-like sounds that rip apart all previous music norms. I might be raving a bit much about this band, but they were able to take a piece of every current artist I like and meld it into one. They took the soul of Alex Clare, the catchiness of bands like the Wanted, and the flavor of Mumford and Sons; and ultimately made a party in my ear drums.

                I would say that “Radioactive” is one of the best songs on the album if the others weren’t so good! But “Radioactive” is a very suspenseful and powerful song. The lyrics are disturbing at times yet utterly forceful and powerful in their meaning. This song probably most closely resembles Alex Clare’s work, as it has a great bass drop at the beginning which marks an amazing and stark shift/contrast in attitude/tone. In this song, they sound a lot more intense than others but it works fantastic. I can’t stop listening to it!

                “Demons” is not a lot like the previous song but still makes me bang my head to the beat. I would classify it as a softer version of “Radioactive” while incorporating a more self-discovery oriented message. It starts off really soft and the vocals shine through in this song even more than “Radioactive”. Check this one out too:

                This last song is probably one of my least favorite songs of their newly released singles. That really isn’t saying much, though. The worst of a series of champion songs is still a champion! “Round and Round” has a lot of catchy beats and counter melodies. The vocal ticks add a lot of variety to the main chorus. For some reason, it doesn’t all come together for me until midway through. But that’s just personal preference. Listening to it again, I hear different aspects that I missed before. The beginning sounds a lot like that folk-type music that Mumford and Sons made so popular lately. Towards the middle-end, though, it climaxes with some crazy vocals and instrumentals. I kind of retract my previous statement of disliking this song. It’s just so hard to hate on this band! Well, listen to this one too because it is, like everything else, great.

 I’m amazed at how many of these songs I like! Usually, I’m lucky to enjoy a mere couple of songs on an album, but every song I listened to of Imagine Dragons has appealed directly to my tastes in music. They really hit the spot and I HIGHLY encourage anyone to delve into more of their music.