Imagine Dragons - Smoke + Mirrors (Super Deluxe Edition) (2015)

Imagine Dragons are the quintessence of what passes for “alternative” in today’s music culture, which is either a good or an alarming thing, depending on whether you’re trying to use their music to sell something. With 2012’s Night Visions, the band proved that a record could be wildly successful without depending on sex, drugs, or other unseemly content to attract attention. All you had to do was brew a noncommittal concoction of rock and hip-hop, sprinkle in some cutesy production flourishes like the mandolin on “It’s Time”, and then drown the whole thing in rousing choruses. It seems the defining feature of modern alternative (aside from goddamn handclaps in goddamn everything) is the notion that every little feeling is worthy of a soaring anthem. If Mumford & Sons were an actual family business, they’d specialize in forging blunt hammers with which to bludgeon subtlety.