Night Visions by Imagine Dragons

                This CD took me by surprise.  I fully expected it to be hard rock all the way through.  Before picking up the CD I had only heard two of the songs, “Radioactive” and “It’s Time”.  Both had elements of the hard rock sound to them, especially “Radioactive” which has been used for the commercials of at least two different TV shows.  This is what led me to think all the songs would be this way.  I was completely wrong.  There are many different influences throughout the album which leads to no two songs sounding alike.  This suits me just fine as I much prefer each song to be different from the others.

                “Radioactive” is the first song on the album and it is also the hardest.  I like the song, which is good because it is the one that gets stuck in my head most often.  Then immediately with the next song, “Tiptoe”, the sounds change.  There is much more of a techno dance beat feel to it.  With the third song there is a change again, and so on.  This happens throughout the entire album.  While the different sounds and influences are repeated, they are used differently each time and do not come one after the other.  One of the most noticeable influences is with the song “On Top of the World”.  There are so many musical elements that sound as though they are from the Caribbean Islands that I feel as though I have traveled to a climate much warmer than my own.           

                Caribbean and techno are not the only influences.  Some of the songs I feel could be from the 1980’s.  I do not mean this in a bad way by any means.  Yes, some have disdain for nearly anything that came out of that decade, but I do not.  A lot of good music did come from that time and some of those sounds and rhythms I hear in songs such as “Amsterdam” and “Underdog”.  I also hear even older influences in a couple of the songs.  One reminds me of some ‘70’s music and another is a bit psychedelic.

                As much as I enjoyed picking out the different influences, my favorite song of the album I did not detect any noticeable ones.  My favorite song is “Demons”.  This may sound odd to some since it is called “Demons”, but I find the song soothing.  Most of the song concentrates on the singer’s voice and leaves the accompanying music in the background.  At times the music does become more prominent, but it never quite takes over which leaves the voice featured.

                Someone may listen to this album and not at all hear the influences I hear.  Or maybe he or she will detect ones I missed.  In the end it does not matter to me.  What I care about is that people go out and listen to this album.  End of story.