1/5 stars
There’s a rumour going around that the members of Imagine Dragons are Annunaki – flesh-eating reptilian humanoids – disguised as pop pins, who want to rule us or eat us. Or it could just be that the ‘lizard elite’ thing is an allegory for the parasitic nature of mainstream pop.
Smoke + Mirrors comes at an important time because Imagine Dragons’ are becoming less tolerable, and maybe something needs to make us stem our vitriol a little. Maybe the right synth-rock jam pudge will push us enough toward a hard reset. Honesty can be the only thing that could redeem a band Queens Of The Stone Age told to get fucked.
In ‘Shots’, the boys start off apologising in peaky falsetto, but it seems they’re being more self-indulgent than self-aware. ‘The Fall’ is fodder for health insurance ads, and ‘Thief’sounds like that one hit they had which I think actually was a health insurance ad.
I’d like to apologise for ever advocating for Imagine Dragons, because what we’re dealing with here is something criminally dishonest.
There may be a band and a record that unites the tribes of music appreciation, but it won’t be a record that makes cutesy winks at deception in its very title.
Smoke + MirrorsbyImagine Dragonsis out throughUniversal/Interscope.
