It begs the question of what the thought process behind these choices is no human with a working set of ears could possibly think that Cutthroat sounds good, or that the jerky, clumsy Monday and Giants are in any way reasonably composed. They’re now five albums in, and their design philosophy of clunky, lumbering palettes of sound hasn’t improved or found more polish. The implication that Imagine Dragons are sticking around is never a good one, especially with the fact that they aren’t even close to recognising how awful they actually are. It makes their continued success even more baffling when, of all the music that deigns to call itself rock, this is what the public has aligned themselves with, to where the Act 1 that suffixes this new album ends up feeling more like a threat than a promise.
And regardless of how sincere they are, the fact that the vast majority of Imagine Dragons’ work has sounded awful is hard to ignore, in clattering, atonal ‘ideas’ that often sound like a very first draft extrapolated way further than it has any right to be. But then you remember this is Imagine Dragons, the parasitic blight on the music industry throughout the 2010s whose influence has permeated the mainstream rock scene in stiff, booming progressions and a synthetic cheapness from bands who have no business playing into that. It can be easy to feel sorry for Imagine Dragons sometimes, when so much of their work and ambitions are driven through true sincerity.