Imagine Dragons – Night Visions
Review by Jen Boylen
I recently became a devoted listener of Imagine Dragons, and have since fallen madly in love with their sound. With over 100,000 likes on Facebook and three EP’s under their belt, Imagine Dragons has released their debut full-length album: Night Visions, just in time for their performance at Chicago’s Riot Fest. This band is absolutely one to keep an eye on. Plus an album with 13 songs on iTunes is a steal.
The opening track, “Radioactive”, begins with sounds similar to that of Cold Play, with light instrumentals and haunting ‘oohs’ in the background, but once the percussion begins we’re thrown for a loop. Heavy computer sounds and passionate vocals building upon the intro give us a great peak into what’s in store for the rest of the album.
Imagine Dragons may sound familiar, and once you hit track three you will realize why. “It’s Time” is a song I bet everyone has heard playing in a friend’s car, on the radio, or in the trailer for the upcoming blockbuster, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”. There are big things in store for this song, like an MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best Rock Video as well as a cover on the coming season of Glee. Its popularity is much deserved with an infectious beat and flawless vocals. I mean, who doesn’t love a song you can clap and stomp your feet along to?
“On Top Of The World” stands out from the first part of this record. It stays true to Imagine Dragons style with hand percussion of clapping and snapping and group vocals through out the chorus, but it has this upbeat, sunshiny feel that just makes your heart happy as you listen to it. If you ever need a pick me up, this is the song for that. It’s also going to be featured in FIFA 2013, which is also a great accomplishment.
Now, the last three tracks I mentioned are obviously going to be favorites considering they were previous released on Imagine Dragons Continued Silence EP. If they weren’t crowd favorites they wouldn’t have been included on this record as well, but now let’s plunge into brand new music.
“Every Night” is a love song with the Imagine Dragons stamp. It has lots of percussion, multi-layer vocals, and emotion. Guys, if you can’t find a way to tell your girl how much she means to you, I’m sure this song will do it justice.
“Bleeding Out” is heart wrenching and fantastic. It’s packed full of, you guessed it-clapping and percussion, but then raw vocals makes this track one of my favorites off of the whole record. It pairs emotion in the words with the instrumentals of this track that are anything but typical for what the song is about, but that’s exactly what makes it a song that just wows you.
Track number 11, “Nothing Left To Say” is a whopping nine minutes long, well, with a little gem entitled “Rocks” hidden at the end. It’s definitely not a track to miss. The first part is a song anyone can relate to-that feeling of wanting to fix things with someone but everything is beyond repair. After six minutes, I didn’t even realize the song had lasted that long because I was just enjoying listening to it. The first part slowly fades out and we hear about thirty seconds of silence and as soon as you think the song is over-it’s not, but I was totally okay with that.
The closing track on Night Visions is also one of my favorites on the record. “Fallen” is that one song that sort of embodies everything that happened in the songs before it. If you finish listening to this album and only one thing catches your attention it should be this track. Although this “Fallen” is wicked, I highly doubt it will be the only thing you remember from Imagine Dragons debut. This may be there first full length but there are definitely huge things in store for this band that no one should miss. Jump on now, or you may miss the Imagine Dragons train and that would be a shame now wouldn’t it?
Overall Rating: 5/5
Recommended Tracks: Bleeding Out, Fallen
Website: www.imaginedragonsmusic.com/
