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Succinct and to the purpose, the title of Imagine Dragons’ third album, Evolve, stated all of it. The Las Vegas quartet arrived with a bang with their multi-platinum 2012 debut, Night Visions, in 2012, and did additional heavy lifting with 2015’s chart-topping Smoke + Mirrors, but they knew they nonetheless needed to go additional to make sure their longevity. The subsequent ten-month world tour in help of Smoke + Mirrors successfully drew a line beneath the band’s first part. Yet, whereas Imagine Dragons knew they couldn’t withdraw from the frontline indefinitely, they may afford to retreat for a much-needed break, which they took throughout the early a part of 2016.
Listen to the Imagine Dragons album Evolve proper now.
A brief break
“It was the first time we took time off the road for almost six years, which I think we needed,” frontman Dan Reynolds mirrored in a 2017 Music Week interview. “We were all really burnt out in a lot of ways. We wanted to give the world a break from us as well, because I think they were burning out on us.”
The band didn’t completely shut up store, as they nonetheless performed sporadic exhibits and contributed to the soundtracks for films akin to Passengers and the DC Comics-related Suicide Squad. However, their much-needed battery recharge ensured they have been again in what Reynolds known as “a really healthy headspace” once they started stockpiling an abundance of fabric for his or her third album.
The album
“We like to write a lot, so we already come to the studio with a lot of ideas,” guitarist Wayne Sermon instructed US publication Atwood, in July 2017. “So it’s really just a matter of picking and choosing, editing and recording the songs for real.”
A logical development from the “pop music that’s very current” which made Smoke + Mirrors such an infinite thrill, Evolve was contemporary, vibe-y, and as soon as once more full of songs that had crossover potential. Full of superior stadium-sized rock music strategically tempered with electronica, Evolve’s tracklist harbored quite a few potential hits (“Whatever It Takes,” “Thunder,” the rousing, Depeche Mode-esque “Believer”) and in addition just a few notable departures such because the filmic “I Don’t Know Why” and the sparse, club-friendly “Dancing In The Dark”: the latter clearly bearing the stamp of co-producer Alex Da Kid, whose credit additionally embody Nicki Minaj, Dr. Dre, and Eminem.
Reynolds’ lyrics additionally often referenced change and regeneration, with the extremely rapid refrain to “Yesterday” (“Here’s to my future, goodbye to my yesterday!”) greatest exemplifying the band’s newfound positivity. Indeed, because the singer later instructed Music Week, he felt that Imagine Dragons’ third album wasn’t only a development, however extra of a rebirth. “I feel like [Evolve] is a point of arrival for us in many ways,” Reynolds stated. “It’s the first record we’ve put out where I feel, sonically, it’s cohesive. It speaks for what Imagine Dragons is and it’s taken us years to find it – but part of that searching process was great.”
The response
The band’s burgeoning military of followers agreed that their heroes had returned at their life-affirming greatest, and their chart positions quickly bore this out. Evolve’s first two singles, “Believer” and the fundamental “Thunder,” each shot to No.4 on the Billboard Hot 100, whereas the album itself – launched through Interscope/KIDinaKORNER on June 23, 2017 – peaked at No.2 on the Billboard 200, making certain that Imagine Dragons remained within the highlight all around the world.
Helped alongside by some well-observed opinions (together with NME’s, which hailed the album as “an 80s-flecked, power-rock pumping station fit to burst with huge choruses”), Evolve additionally loved a sturdy afterlife. Imagine Dragons supported the report with a prolonged world tour, kicking off in Phoenix, Arizona, on September 26, whereas in March 2018 they made historical past by turning into the primary act in historical past to monopolize the highest 4 spots on Billboard’s Alternative Digital Songs chart, with Evolve’s quartet of singles, “Believer,” “Thunder,” “Whatever It Takes” and “Next To Me.”
By this stage, the album was already racking up multi-platinum gross sales, and Imagine Dragons have been eager about shaping their fourth album, 2018’s Origins. However, as Dan Reynolds knowledgeable Music Week, making Evolve had been a turning level. Its creation had refreshed the band.
“[Evolve] really was a fun record,” he furthered. “Now we’ve reached a point where I just feel happy and confident with where we are. I’m happy with what we’ve done and what Imagine Dragons stands for – and excited for the future!”
The Imagine Dragons album Evolve may be purchased right here.