A while back, the YouTuber KSI wrote a song called “Thick of It” and instead of being a success, everyone hated it. The comments section became the roasting section. If the music video had been a steak, it would’ve been burnt all the way through. One commentor even said that “Thick of It” was the best argument against free speech that they had ever heard.
However, despite how terrible “Thick of It” was, I think I found something even worse – an even better argument against free speech – and that is Imagine Dragon’s new album, Reflections, or rather, Reflections (From the Vault of Smoke + Mirrors). Believe me when I tell you that upon listening to this album, my immediate thought was that the majority of it should’ve stayed hidden deep in the vault and had the key thrown into the ocean where it should’ve sunk to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, never to be seen again. That’s how bad it is.
To be generous in this review of Reflections, let’s start with the only favorable part of this album: “Black” wasn’t too bad, and neither was “A-OK,” “Destroyed,” “My Car” (though the music was mainly the only redeeming part of that), or “Journey” and the last song was “Bet My Life.” This was a nice way for Imagine Dragons to thank us for listening to their new album…by reminding us of the good old 2010’s when every album was almost a guaranteed success. Seriously, whoever gave this album the greenlight should be fired.
Now strap yourself in for the cons. Every song on this album (except for the ones previously mentioned) is absolute trash. The first song on Reflections is called “Woke.” Thankfully, while it wasn’t about Dan Reynolds’ politics and the lyrics weren’t terrible, the music itself was odd. I’m not even entirely sure how to describe it. It was like the band was experimenting with some sort of Carribean music and was trying to combine it with some of their other stuff and it just didn’t work. It also doesn’t help that it’s incredibly repetitive. While I understand that songs are supposed to have some repetition, did Imagine Dragons really need to have half of their chorus be this?
Diki-da-da-mm-da-da-mm-dadadada
Diki-da-da-mm-da-da-mm-da
Diki-diki-da-da-mm-da-da-mm-dadadada
Dibi-daba-dooba-daba-dooba-daba-da
And remember, the chorus takes up most of “Woke.” Most of this song is just Dan Reynolds doing whatever that was.
Then, there’s the second song, “The Ghost Intervention.” The opening music of the song is fine, but then Dan Reynolds makes the mistake of actually singing the lyrics and everything goes downhill from there. It’s even more repetitive than “Woke” since it sounds like whoever wrote this song wrote the first few stanzas of it, then hit copy and paste, added some weird synth or disco music behind it, and called it a day.
The third song, “Monica,” is a breakup song. The music was good, and the chorus was okay, but it was mediocre. I think this problem came from the songwriter making the lines too long, so Reynolds ended up having to pause more between words, making it feel choppy. Songs are supposed to have some lyrics that rhyme, but because of the choppiness, it makes it sound like no one bothered to rhyme anything, screwing up the melody.
Because this album is 14 songs long and (counting “Bet My Life”, “A-OK”, “Destroyed,” “My Car,” “Journey,” and “Black”), I’m 9 songs through and losing momentum, I’m now going to speed run the rest of these songs.
“Strange Ways” was also mediocre musically, and lyrically, it felt stalkerish. Sorry buddy, but she’s ignoring you because she doesn’t want you. Stop with your fantasy and move on.
“I Get Carried Away” opens up with soft synth music that slowly gets louder, building into a beat that sounds like something you could maybe make a goofy rap song out of that continues until the 54 second mark in which we get the first lyrics of:
La-la, la-la-la
La-la, la-la-la
La-la, la-la-la
Boom-chicka, boom-chicka, boom-chicka, boom-chicka
This also takes up the post-chorus and outro, but some of the other lyrics are alright…until you get to the main chorus which, just like “Strange Ways,” sounds like someone needs to learn some boundaries and let the other person go.
The music for “Playin’ Me” sounds like it would be great for a montage in a Capital One commercial and doesn’t match the content of the lyrics, which is about a guy wondering if his girlfriend is cheating on him. “Cowboy” has a similar problem musically, but it’s not as bad and the lyrics actually match the upbeat tone.
“Mayday” musically sounds like something you’d watch a spy creeping around to in a mystery movie but lyrically makes no sense.
Ultimately, though not every song on this album was terrible, most of them were and I would not recommend wasting your time on them. Imagine Dragons is a good band. Their last album, Loom, was pretty good and brought back quite a bit of nostalgia for the music they were releasing in the 2010s. So what the heck happened? Unfortunately, we may never know. All we can do is hope that their next album is better.
Until next time,
M.J.
The Tanuki Corner 
Nah, I was trying to forget about Thick Of It 😡 For real though, I was pretty upset when this album dropped. I went from near-fanboy (when Monica released) to what-the-heck-Imagine-Dragons. I really liked Loom, and hoped this would be as good. Alas….
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Exactly. So much of it felt like it needed you to ask, “What did these guys smoke?” to justify how bad it was.
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