Smoke + Mirrors [Deluxe Edition] [LP]

by Imagine Dragons

Overview

Conspicuously absent from the laundry list of influences the Imagine Dragons so often cite is the Killers, the only other Las Vegas rock band of note. Imagine Dragons downplay the glamour the Killers found so alluring but they share a taste for the overblown, something that comes to full fruition on their second album, Smoke + Mirrors. Bigger and bolder than 2012's Night Visions, Smoke + Mirrors captures a band so intoxicated with their sudden surprise success that they've decided to indulge in every excess. They ratchet up their signature stomp -- it's there on "I Bet My Life," the first single and a song that's meant to reassure fans that they're not going to get something different the second time around -- but they've also wisely decided to broaden their horizons, seizing the possibilities offered by fellow arena rockers Coldplay and Black Keys. Despite the bloozy bluster of "I'm So Sorry" -- a Black Keys number stripped of any sense of R&B groove -- the group usually favors the sky-scraping sentiment of Coldplay, but where Chris Martin's crew often seems pious, there's a genial bros-next-door quality to Imagine Dragons that deflates their grandiosity. Certainly, Smoke + Mirrors is rock so large it's cavernous -- the reverb nearly functions as a fifth instrument in the band -- but the group's straight-faced commitment to the patently ridiculous has its charm, particularly because they possess no sense of pretension. This separates ID from the Killers, who never met a big idea they didn't like. Imagine Dragons like big sounds and big emotions -- and, if they can muster it, big hooks -- and the commitment to style over substance gives them ingratiating charm, particularly when they decide to thread in slight elements of EDM on "Shots" (something that surfaces on the title track as well), or Vampire Weekend's worldbeat flirtations on "Summer." Imagine Dragons purposefully cobble their sound together from these heavy-hitters of alt-rock, straightening them into something easily digestible for the masses but, like so many commercially minded combos, how they assemble these familiar pieces often results in pleasingly odd combinations. These guys are shameless and that's what makes them more fun than your average arena rockers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Product Details

Release Date:	12/18/2015
Label:	Interscope
UPC:	0602547630278
Rank:	19347

Tracks

Disc 1

1. Shots
2. Gold
3. Smoke and Mirrors
4. I¿¿¿m So Sorry
5. I Bet My Life
6. Polaroid
7. Friction
8. It Comes Back to You
9. Dream
10. Trouble

Disc 2

11. Summer
12. Hopeless Opus
13. The Fall
14. Thief
15. The Unknown
16. Second Chances
17. Release
18. Warriors
19. Battle Cry
20. Monster
21. Who We Are

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Imagine Dragons   Primary Artist
The Las Vegas Mass Choir   Vocals
Christian Linke   Strings
Pete Bresciani   Trumpet

Technical Credits

Josh Mosser   Composer,Engineer
Manny Marroquin   Mixing
Alex da Kid   Composer,Producer
Chris Galland   Assistant,Mixing Assistant
Joe LaPorta   Mastering,Mastering Engineer
Imagine Dragons   Composer,Engineer,Producer
Robert Root   Mixing,Engineer
Christian Linke   Engineer
Alexander Grant   Composer
Daniel Platzman   Composer
Ben McKee   Composer
Dan Reynolds   Composer
Wayne Sermon   Composer
Phil Liddiard   Engineer
Ike Schultz   Mixing Assistant
Sebastien Najand   Arranger,Orchestration