Loom, Imagine Dragons’ new album, is a mixed bag of feelings, frontman Dan Reynolds says
The ambiguity of Imagine Dragons’ next album starts from the cover.
Two figures stand in the distance separated by a rising sun. Or is it setting? Lead singer and songwriter Dan Reynolds, who dreamed it up, sees it both ways.
“You can’t really tell if it’s a sunset or a sunrise, and then there are two people kind of separated standing in front of it. That really kind of sums it up thematically when I listen to it,” he says.
“Is it the beginning of something new, or is this the end of something? And the sunset and the sunrise always kind of feels that way to me. It could be either/or.”
From the paranoid, slightly demented hip-hop-rock opening song “Wake Up” – with Reynolds singing: “Everybody’s coming for you/Wake up”! – to the strummy, swaying “Take Me to the Beach”, it’s clear the nine-track album Loom isn’t one thing.
The album, which comes out on June 28, is the first since Reynolds’ divorce from musician Aja Volkman and there are songs about moving on – the sunny, flirtatious “Nice to Meet Ya” – but also ones looking back, like the bittersweet “In Your Corner” – “You turned your back/And now we’re here” – and “Don’t Forget Me”, with the lyrics “Guess we got lost in the light”.
“I just start creating and whatever comes out is what it is. That’s how I’ve been since I was 12. I try not to overthink it,” says Reynolds. “It is just an honest output sonically, lyrically of how I’m feeling in the moment.”
For the driving, anthemic “Kid”, Reynolds says his life was chaotic at the time he went into the studio. He spoke words that he was feeling over a drum loop: “You got to get yourself together, kid/You got to get it together”. Then the band built on that.
The song, inspired by 90s music, including output from Gorillaz, became an exhortation for America, so adding a choir made sense.
“We had a lot of fun creating that one in the studio. I love the juxtaposition of things that are kind of tongue-in-cheek, but also maybe dark,” he says. “Heavy concepts, but playful at the same time.”
Loom was recorded differently. The band, which includes guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee and drummer Daniel Platzman, abandoned their usual multiple producers in favour of the Swedish duo Mattman & Robin.
“We usually go into the record having a bunch of demos that we’ve already just self-produced and done on our own,” Reynolds says. “But this one we had a bunch of demos and we just scrapped everything and went in with a clean slate.”
Loom comes two years after Mercury, the brooding, raw, confessional double album that dealt with heartache, tragedy and Reynolds’ struggles with sobriety.
“Eyes Closed”, the new album’s first single, is a big, stormy banger with chest-pounding lyrics: “I’m back from the dead, from the back of my head/Been gone and facin’ horrors that should never be said”.
A lot of the record is kind of trying to come to terms with just accepting. Things are looming and incoming, for better or for worse
Reynolds was going for a blustery, arrogant vibe with a vulnerable core. “It really was about being something that on the outside looks put together and strong,” he says, “but on the inside it’s on the verge of maybe shattering”.
The title Loom has multiple meanings. “Just because something is looming doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. It could be good,” he says. “I also love the idea of the double meaning of it, kind of being a tapestry.”
The Dragons will tour North America in support of LoomReynolds says touring is deep within their DNA, and he talks about playing live as if it were a massive therapeutic effort.
“It is just a lot of people in a room together realising they’re not alone in their feelings,” he says. “I don’t necessarily need them to feel happy or sad or anything. I just want them to look around them and see that other people are also feeling something and feeling, ‘I’m not alone in that’.”
Songs from Loom will be on the set list, of course. Reynolds considers it one of the band’s most uptempo collections, even though there are ballads and slow moments.
“A lot of the record is kind of trying to come to terms with just accepting. Things are looming and incoming, for better or for worse, and there’s just really nothing you could do other than accept it,” he says. “I still haven’t learned to do that, but we will.”
