Banjos!
[Video][Website]
[3.38]
Brad Shoup: “I’m just a slave unto the night” is the sound of a guy punching way over his weight class. It’s the screamy stuff that lands, and Dan Reynolds leads a decent jamboree in between full-gospel howls chopped for maximum ease of digestion. It turns out spirituality is the last resort of the scoundel; I guess y’all already knew. The four-on-the-floor revival stomp is here, and some curling guitar figure playing for banjo. On the final run through the refrain, I was thinking Reynolds was bound to let himself get digitally twisted a la “Some Nights”. But a scoundrel he remains.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: It’s happened, the horrible unthinkable: I’ve come around to “Radioactive,” in a gonzo lumbering Linkin Park way. A friend started singing along in a bar and I didn’t even smirk. But now they’ve gone and went soft. I mean, softer.
[3]
Anthony Easton: This doesn’t even have the wind-up to the explosion or the undulating waves. Plus, the banjo is underplayed in the mix, and the banjo was the best thing about the band.
[3]
Alfred Soto: Still shouting pretty maxims, still loud and pompous about it.
[1]
Micha Cavaseno: You know, it did make some sense when this band blew up. Earlier singles might have been dull and malformed, but it was a character all of their own. Now you’ve got the exact midway point between Train, fun and Mumford as a stylistic voice; all that’s left of the old Dragons is their swollen sense of self-importance, their eternal easy Achilles’ heel. Funny how the worst things can be the crux of someone’s work.
[1]
Iain Mew: If you’re going to strip back the rest of your song to functional nothingness to emphasise your chorus even further, it’s probably a good idea to make sure that it isn’t just a bombastic Kinks rip-off.
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: “Please forgive me for all that I’ve done.” Sorry, dude, but basically taking the formula behind a billion EDM songs and flipping it for rock…and making it impossible to dance to, only scream along with…is a pretty big slip up.
[3]
David Sheffieck: The song isn’t as catchy as it should be, relying on repetition over hooks, but the production is gloriously overstuffed, quickly turning into some kind of gonzo ho hey – with a bridge that’s enough of a left turn to feel genuinely unexpected in contrast. I have no idea who Imagine Dragons are as a band after hearing this song (maybe pop’s most gifted mimics?) but they’ve got my attention now.
[8]