LOOM Analysis

LOOM Analysis

Aidon Huck

The great mind Todd in the Shadows once said, “what does an Imagine Dragons fan even look like? What would that say about you?”

Okay maybe fan is a strong word but I can pretty much guarantee that I am the only person that I know that cares about this album even a little bit. Why? Well, what does an Imagine Dragons fan even look like?

Where am I going with this? I don’t really know to be honest ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What I’m trying to get at I think is that I’m looking at this album with more than a little nostalgia bias. Imagine Dragons was pivotal in my musical development. They were there for me, so no matter how bad it gets I’ll be there for them. 

Luckily, this is not as bad as it gets. This album is, dare I say, pretty solid. 

There are a lot of things that they’ve done right here. They’ve made a very consistent set of tracks this time around, especially when compared to their last project, the double album Mercury which was a complete mess*. On LOOM Imagine Dragons have picked a sound, and for the most part done a good job sticking with it. This sound consists of a lot of atmospheric warbling pads and very dry electronic sounding percussion, as well as more hiphop inspired vocal performances that Dan Reynolds has become known for, for better or worse. They’ve also seemingly allowed themselves to use some generic sampling on tracks like Wake Up and In Your Corner, something which is incredibly common but not really something they’ve done much of. I’m not necessarily praising them for this development because it is so basic, but I just thought I’d note it. 

* It was 32 songs and pretty much none of them sounded like they belonged on an album with any other one. Truly an insane feat of album construction and pacing. Just look at the insane three track run that is Blur-> Higher Ground-> Crushed. Whoever put those tracks in that order must have been on something silly. or they took notes from bk

They’re also playing it generally smoother. That’s the only way I can express the vibe this thing is giving off. I wouldn’t say they’re going in a dancy direction necessarily, but the tracks they’ve offered up have a certain bouncy quality that they don’t often achieve. The song Nice To Meet You is a great example of this. The light 16th swing and bassline create a lot of motion that works really well for the band. A lot of the more aggressive elements of their usual sound are sanded down or gone entirely. I think that works to the advantage of this album. It doesn’t have any moments that are raw or ugly in the way that tracks like Dull Knives or Giants from the last album were. As interesting as I think those songs are, I admit they’re difficult to sit through (especially the former of the two). As a result of this shift the album feels like a very clean, intentional package that passes by in a breeze.

Speaking of passing by in a breeze, this album is incredibly short. Unbelievably so in fact. The whole thing is only 31 minutes, but when one factors in that the last track is just a different version of Eyes Closed (now featuring J Balvin) the album proper is only 28 minutes. For context, a lot of the big pop albums of this year are much longer. Billie Eilish was 43 min, Charli xcx was 41 min, Taylor Swift was 2 HOURS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! (I know it’s a double album but each individual part is an hour. Her albums have always been long though, so that’s not abnormal for her). LOOM is only 9 real tracks after taking out EC+JB. This is their shortest album by a wide margin. They have an EP longer than the whole project. Even if you add in “Children of the Sky (a Starfield song)” which is on the Japanese edition of the CD, LOOM only gets up to 34 minutes in its absolute longest configuration. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad choice, especially after the behemoth that was Mercury (1 hr 45 min). In fact, I think the album is possibly better for it. Nothing here feels like boring filler and I commend them for that. 

Here are some brief track specific thoughts: 

Wake Up does a dumb thing where at the end of phrases he will say a word that ends with “ in’ ” but he extends it out so words like “ spinnin’ ” become “ spinnininin ” and it’s actually hilarious. He plays it 100% straight. Otherwise it’s pretty good

Nice to Meet You is bouncy and fun instrumentally like I mentioned earlier, but lyrically it has a very weird vibe. According to the Genius interview it’s about seeing someone new (romantically 😱) but their friend is kind of trying to get in the way and the song comes across as weirdly spiteful with very specific shots at this person while awkwardly making claims in interviews like “not saying it actually happened.” He’s not fooling anyone. Whoever the song is about definitely knows it’s about them and that’s really weird. 

I’ve already written a lot about Eyes Closed, which I can link to here, but one thing I somehow missed is yes, the song is actually partially about driving with your eyes closed. There’s a car crash in the video. That’s insane. The song is still fine. 

Take Me to the Beach is so strangely aggressive. Why is that? This song is pretty alright but it’s surreal hearing him say “take me to the beach” very angrily with so many layers of backing vocals. Also “you take the snow, it’s way too cold, my heart is cold enough” is just a bit cringe. 

In Your Corner is maybe the first one that I think is directly about his recent divorce, which was finalized in March this year. I think the sentiment is pretty good. It’s sad about the split but says “but you know I’ve been here all along in your corner,” showing that he did and probably still cares about her. It can also be read literally because he was married to a WWE star, and he was frequently at her matches. That part is not true, he was married to a singer. Back on topic. Verse 2 references his drug addiction (which he is fortunately sober from now) possibly pointing to it as a cause for the divorce. I think this takes a fairly mature perspective and doesn’t seem bitter, which I applaud. On the musical side it’s nothing special until the very end of the song where it brings in a beautiful string section. For me this is easily the best moment on the album. I love strings.

Gods Don’t Pray is very strange. The only way I can interpret it right now is that it’s a message to the haters basically saying, “oh you hate us? Cute. We’re basically unstoppable.” If you find another interpretation for, “break me and shame me. You should see the view up here, gods don’t pray” let me know. Musically this is going for a dark-circus-reggae thing that feels like it could only exist in a post Billie Eilish world. Obviously they do not do it as well but that’s the only real comparison I can make. 

That or Don’t Forget Me might be a weaker songs here. It opens with a pretty bland U2 ripoff guitar line and the song doesn’t really go anywhere from there. It’s a little boring, but that’s pretty much its only crime. The lyrics are also about the divorce and fondly remembering the early days of the relationship. It’s actually fairly compelling in that department because I feel bad for him. Sorry about your divorce Dan. The piano at the end is great.

Kid is the closest thing to an actual rock song here. It’s got a nice pulse and there are occasionally guitars, specifically in the bridge. I like the song fine, but I have a very specific complaint about it. This song could have been so much better if they made this bridge about 8 times as long. They bring in real guitars and drop the volume down, introduce a new vocal idea, and then immediately transition back into the chorus. To me the glaringly obvious thing to do here is to ACTUALLY DEVELOP A MUSICAL IDEA AAAAAAAAAAA. It’s so frustrating when they are close to doing something good and then completely drop the ball. I want a big dynamic alt-rock moment and they refuse to give it to me. Disgusting. “Get yourself together, kid.” 

Fire in These Hills is the last song on the album proper. It features a saxophone, and if my memory serves me correctly I think it’s the first song of theirs to do so. It’s one of the best in the tracklist in my opinion and is also probably about the divorce. This context makes the line “but after everything, you’re here with me still” interesting because well, she’s not. It must be referring to someone other than his ex-wife, but doesn’t make that clear. I suppose all of that is speculation though. One line that actually stands out to me as very strange is “I fear I might wreck this home.” I don’t think that’s the right phrase Dan. I don’t think he means that he’s a homewrecker, that must have just been a mistake of wording. Other than that the song is good. I do think it’s incredibly sad that the last line of the song, and therefore the album proper, is “I’m so tired, can I please?” That hits. 

After that we have the version of Eyes Closed featuring J Balvin and on the Japanese CD version it adds Children of the Stars (a Starfield song). J Balvin adds a lot of much needed charisma with his performance, and though I can’t say for sure it doesn’t seem like he’s phoning it in which is nice. There’s a new bridge here as well. I’ll also add in some thoughts about the acoustic version of this song, which is interesting but a little strange. They do base it more on acoustic guitar, but since their drummer left they have a little drum machine there. They keep the electronic bass wubs too, which are basically the opposite of acoustic. Certainly a weird choice. Also they let the bassist use his trans flag bass in the videos for both of these versions, so that’s cool. 

As the name implies, Children of the Stars (a Starfield song) was made for the game Starfield. Imagine Dragons has made songs for video games before, working fairly consistently with League of Legends, but something is different about this collab. The songs they made for LOL are good, and this song is bad. It uses the most generic sounding cinematic orchestra chords at the beginning and the vocal performance is overdramatic and rough. The lyrics feel so lazy. “Children of the sky, flying up so high” yikes. I didn’t know Imagine Dragons needed to collect paychecks at this point but that is totally what they’re doing here. I actually laughed when they announced this song. It’s not on the album proper so it doesn’t affect my opinion of the project, I just had to mention it. 

The only major complaint I have of the album is that none of the songs seem to go anywhere. They never develop beyond their original idea, they barely build dynamically from the point they start at, none of that. The songs are all very short as well. In Your Corner is the longest because of the string outro, but even that doesn’t reach 4 minutes. They are capable of writing longer songs. Many songs from their earlier career are well over 4 minutes, Pantomime from the It’s Time EP (great song) is 5 minutes and The Fall is very comfortable at 6 minutes. They just chose to not do that here. Several songs are even under 3 minutes on LOOM. Kid is the shortest at 2:39 (so it’s not like extending the bridge would have made it too long 😡). I think that’s a trend across pop music in general so it’s not out of the ordinary, but I don’t think it’s a hot take to say that I want my songs to go somewhere. 

Overall though, I think this is one of their strongest albums. I wouldn’t say it’s their best, there aren't any real high points, but it’s certainly the album with the least bad. None of the songs here are particularly offensive in any way, but I don’t feel that strongly about any of them either. In a list of their best songs I don’t really know if anything here would crack the top 10 for me, but I also don’t think anything would place in their bottom 50. If I were to choose what my ideal Imagine Dragons album would look like this would not be it. They seem to be on a pretty good path though. Good job guys. I think this one might be a winner.