“To make a name, you pay the price,” cries Reynolds, sounding positively wracked. Occasionally, the lyrics delve into what Bullet in a Gun – a melding of electronic rhythm track and Kings of Leon impersonation – refers to as “the Devil’s deal” of fame, a curious topic for a band who appear to have ascended to the upper echelons of commercial success with the minimum of angst. The lyrics deal in windy generalities – “Why can’t you just be my brother? Why do we have to kill one another?” – or stuff that fancies itself as profound but doesn’t make any sense: “I want a new world without the order / I want to resurrect and live a little shorter.” What individual character it has comes from an occasional desire to graft on well-worn stadium rock tropes: the pained intensity of Reynolds’ vocals, the rhythm of Machine that mimics the thump-thump-crash of Queen’s We Will Rock You, the yearning, U2-ish breakdown that appears midway through Zero. You can easily imagine Cool Out being performed by DNCE or Maroon 5, or Stuck being given a gruff-voiced makeover by George Ezra. The songs are well crafted – the title track in particular has a wonderfully turned chorus – but the band’s work frequently sounds weirdly interchangeable with other artists who occupy the Top 40.
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The song Digital unexpectedly makes use of a drum’n’bass breakbeat, but for the most part, Origins’ contents arrive thickly spread with chart cliches: reverb-heavy xx-inspired guitars, the kind of high-pitched vocal echoes found on Justin Bieber’s Sorry, a bit of thumpy Mumford-ish folk on West Coast, a track that deals in taut 80s movie soundtrack pop-rock. Notice is thus served that talk of creation without rules and music of a thrilling newness might amount to gilding the lily a bit.Īnd so it proves. Listeners suitably primed for a boundary-breaking shift from the hook-laden, electronic pop-rock that has so far fuelled Imagine Dragons’ oeuvre should perhaps note that the band’s first stop on its journey to new ground was to assemble a collection of producers and co-songwriters noted for their work with avant-garde mavericks including Sam Smith, Cheryl Tweedy, Selena Gomez and fearsome electro-acoustic auteur Ellie Goulding. “We find it thrilling to make music that feels different and new to us.”
“When we create, we create with no boundaries, no rules,” Reynolds said in explanation of its contents. There’s none of your “more palatable album for this time period” in regard to Evolve’s successor, Origins. Nevertheless, the scale of their commercial triumphs has clearly left its mark, not least in the degree of portent with which they now describe their work. Theirs is not a success founded on a striking image, ineffable charisma or brain-searing visual branding. They have achieved all this while maintaining an almost enviable degree of anonymity.
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