You get the impression from their third album that Imagine Dragons are striving desperately for the kind of hipster kudos that would see them viewed as the heirs to a stadium rock band like U2’s throne.
Instead, the Grammy-winning Las Vegas quartet come off as Coldplay’s dorky little brothers; purveyors of earnest, bombastic pop-rock with a synthesised bent.
Not that there's anything wrong with that; Walking the Wire and Whatever It Takes are both arms-aloft anthems, but the more enjoyable tracks follow an 1980s pop template, like the Hall & Oates-style Make It Up to You and Start Over.
The hip-hop stylings of Thunder are ill-advised, but it's easy to see why Imagine Dragons have been so successful to date.
Whether this kind of glossy grandiosity has longevity is an entirely different matter. Imaginedragonsmusic.com
Download: Start Over, Make It Up To You
