Las Vegas four-piece Imagine Dragons are an intriguing outfit. They are, by almost every modern metric that matters, one of the most blisteringly successful bands of the last decade. Billboard ranks their singles Believer, Thunder, and Radioactive as the three biggest rock songs of the 2010s in the US charts, they were Spotify’s most streamed outfit in 2018, and they’ve surpassed 20 million album sales worldwide. And yet, they just don’t seem to have been welcomed into our consciousness in the same way acts like The Killers, in many ways the band that paved the way for their success, have been.

New album, the group’s fifth studio LP, Mercury – Act 1 perhaps is an attempt to address that imbalance. Certainly frontman Dan Reynolds seems to have poured more of himself into this record than on anything else in their back catalogue, with My Life a particularly soaring opener, building from a gentle intro into a screaming, raw, and intense affair.

Wrecked is similarly powerful, as Reynolds confesses “Days pass by and my eyes they dry, and I think that I'm okay / 'Till I find myself in conversation fading away”, and “These days I’m becoming everything that I hate”. Lead single Follow You is just as honest, as Reynold’s dives into the breakdown and subsequent recovery of a relationship against a backdrop of rousing electro-infused rhythms. 

Writing on their official Facebook page, the band said: “We spent the last three years working on this record. Life has been incredibly hard for everyone around the world. We have all felt the loneliness. We've all felt the solidarity. We've all felt the fear. This album is meant to be a source of happiness. 

“Though it dives into moments of grief and searching, at its core, it is a celebration of life and humanity. Though life feels incredibly fragile and finite, we are still alive. And that is a blessing indeed. We have each other. Our only hope is that these songs bring you some sort of refuge and peace. We love and miss you and look forward to seeing you on the road soon.”

It is a varied record, and one that sees the band perhaps share a great deal of themselves. It deserves to see them recognised in new ways as, not just wildly successful, but also capable of crafting songs with real heart. 

Mercury – Act 1 tracklist:

1. My Life
2. Lonely
3. Wrecked
4. Monday
5. #1
6. Easy Come Easy Go
7. Giants
8. It’s OK
9. Dull Knives
10. Follow You
11. Cutthroat
12. No Time For Toxic People
13. One Day

Watch the official video for Wrecked here.

Author: Joe Sharratt

Joe Sharratt is a writer and journalist based in the UK covering music, literature, sport, and travel.