Imagine Dragons
Origins
Release Date: Nov 9, 2018
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Interscope
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Album Review: Origins by Imagine Dragons
Acceptable, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 7/10
Delivered swiftly after Evolve -- it follows that 2017 set by a mere 17 months, practically a blip in the context of modern pop -- Origins adheres to its predecessor's kaleidoscopic digital aesthetic. Nominally a rock band -- and they're more than comfortable pulsing to a big, banging beat -- Imagine Dragons are deliberately amorphous, a blob rolling along sucking up anything in its path. Often, they're content patrolling their own backyard, relying on an EDM-inflected arena rock that consciously recalls Coldplay at both their sweetest and most urgent.
Based on rating 5.3/10
Imagine Dragons have become a case study for rock music fading out of the zeitgeist. The rise of the Las Vegas rock band in 2013 coincided with the lull in the format's popularity, yet, remarkably, they were a runaway success. Their breakthrough hit, "Radioactive," stayed on the Hot 100 chart for a record-setting 87 weeks. They turned down their guitars and turned up every expensive synth pad known to man, and exactly one collaboration with Kendrick Lamar later, they were one of the biggest new rock bands in the country.
Based on rating 2/5
Scattershot and uninspired, 'Origins', the fourth album from the bafflingly popular Imagine Dragons, makes for a gruelling listen Imagine Dragons are impossibly popular. Since erupting onto the scene with the thumping slab of apocalyptic alt rock ‘Radioactive’, they've been constantly played on radio, won a mantelpiece-worth of awards (including a Grammy) and now, six years on, are the top streaming rock band of the year, with over eight billion streams for their 2017 album 'Evolve'. And even though it's only been a year since that album became critically panned but commercially enormous, the Vegas quartet is already back with album number four, the hulking 'Origins'.
Opinion: Mediocre
I f you like mind-bending statistics, then Imagine Dragons are very much the band for you. Their EDM-infused 2012 saga of apocalyptic dread, Radioactive, is the longest-running single in the history of the Billboard charts: 87 weeks on the Top 100. They are the most-streamed rock band in the world, with 37.5m monthly listeners on Spotify: stitch that, Coldplay, with your paltry 27.5m.
'Origins'
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