Review: Imagine Dragons – Smoke + Mirrors

Three years on, and to say Imagine Dragons have moved on from Night Visions would be a colossal understatement.

ID_Smokeand mirrors_COVER_STD_v01 (2)

When Imagine Dragons announced their UK arena tour all those months ago before Smoke + Mirrors was released, I’ll admit I was a little dubious. I saw them on their last UK tour performing at the O2 Academy in Birmingham – somewhere with a capacity of only 3,000. I’m pretty sure they sold out that night, but there’s a difference between the Academy and an arena 10 times its size. After all, the electronic vibes on Night Visions were fun, but were they big enough for arenas? I didn’t think so.

Then I listened to Smoke + Mirrors. How horrifically wrong I was. Where the ‘heaviest’ song on their previous album was ‘Radioactive’, Imagine Dragons have stripped back some of the tinkling electronic sounds that made Night Visions more of a fun album and instead focused on the raw sounds they can make with their instruments and front man Dan Reynolds’ amazingly versatile voice. The guitars are heavier, and even though there are still some synth-y vibes, Smoke + Mirrors takes the band to whole new place compared to its predecessor. I suppose this is what some people might call a ‘darker’ album than the last, but it’s still balanced out by the more upbeat jams such as ‘Shots’ and ‘Polaroid’. Either way, every song is near perfection. Favourite track: It’s a tie between I’m So Sorry and Friction.

Review: Lights – Little Machines

IMG_0762-0.PNG

After months of teasing, Lights has finally released her third full length, Little Machines. It’s been three years since Siberia and a lot has happened to Lights, so this album is a whole leap forward.

It opens with three tracks already released online: the slower ‘Portal’, ‘Running With the Boys’ and ‘Up We Go’. ‘Running With the Boys’ seems like the flip side of the coin ‘Pretend’ started in The Listening. It’s much more upbeat than the 2009 release, though, and the lyrics take a more positive angle.

As the album progresses, it’s clear that it’s lost the almost dub-step edge of Siberia, but by no means the electro pop Lights is known for. ‘Muscle Memory’ strongly echoes Lights’s sound from The Listening with an almost haunting edge. In fact, Little Machines is musically much more like The Listening, but it remains clear that she has come a long way since then – the lyrics have taken on a new edge, accentuating the positive in songs such as ‘Meteorites’, blasting the chorus ‘we are gonna see greater heights/ They’ll put our names up in neon lights’.

After marriage and the birth of her first child, Rocket, it’s no wonder Lights is positive in Little Machines – she has a lot to be positive about. Closing track ‘Don’t Go Home Without Me’ (for those without the deluxe version) seems like a perfect way to end the album. It’s tempo is slower than previous songs, bringing the album full circle from ‘Portal’, and talks about the future. Dispelling loneliness even in her later years, this track peaks at the bridge really showing the diversity of Lights’s voice as she flows seamlessly from belting into a gentle falsetto on the line ‘and we’ll go out in style’. This draws the album to a close beautifully.

Every track of Little Machines fits in with the overall sound of the album, like its predecessors, and although it sounds like The Listening it has the maturity of Siberia and then some. Lights’s sound has evolved through each album, and the current product is a strong sound that still leaves room for her to spread her musical wings. Every track on the album is different, and every one fantastic. Whatever Lights does next, it’ll be hard pushed to top Little Machines, but as we know a lot could happen in the next three years.

Catch Lights on tour in the UK next January.