Cutting its own path

Imagine Dragons Origins

Warner

IMAGINE Dragons continues cutting its own path connecting rock and pop with Origins, the companion album to last year’s Evolve.

And the more singer Dan Reynolds and friends do it, the better they get.

That part is clear on Natural — the album’s first single, which has already topped the rock charts for three months — as Reynolds shows new dynamics to his voice, rather than simply the intensity that has pushed the Las Vegas band up the charts.

It’s impressive to hear them try new things, like the bouncy pop of Zero, which uses the upbeat music to offer support for the seriousness raised in the chorus of “Let me tell you what it’s like to be a zero, zero.” On the laid-back Cool Out, which sounds more like Coldplay or even Gwen Stefani than the band who built Radioactive, Reynolds taps into his inner R&B crooner.

The poignant Bad Liar, sung from the point of view of a parent trying to comfort his kids, has lyrical risks that pay off spectacularly. It’s no wonder that Origins sounds like the start of something even bigger for Imagine Dragons. –

Glenn Gamboa/Newsday/Tribune News Service

Lukas Graham 3

Warner

THE new Lukas Graham album opens with the band attending funerals of their friends and the lead singer offering this hope for survivors: “I pray you won’t reach for that rope.” Things don’t get much happier from there for the Danish band.

Frontman Lukas Forchhammer, whose optimistic 7 Years was a huge hit in 2016, has crafted an album of regret and moodiness with the 10-track 3 (The Purple Album), a record also largely shorn of the upbeat tempos and hip-hop elements that made his last album so successful. This is a truly melancholy Dane.

Many of the tracks are simple piano-driven sentimental ballads that employ religious imagery and extend his love for leaning on gospel. They might be well constructed, but none are overly exciting. It turns out that fun songs like Mama Said from the last album masked a sensitive balladeer.

Much has changed in Forchhammer’s life in the past few years – his father’s death, the birth of a daughter and Grammy nominations – and all that is baked into the album. He’s looking back a lot – and not always happily. One song is even titled Unhappy. It’s one of the most upbeat, seriously.

On Everything That Isn’t Me –a swelling, orchestral-backed ballad that’s designed to get us to wave our lighters in the air – Forchhammer, in his trademark rap-like cadence, apologises for not being a better brother, son and lover. Elsewhere, Forchhammer often laments being away on the lonely road – “Is it worth it when daddy can’t dry your tears?” he sings in Lullaby.

When he looks up, Forchhammer doesn’t see humanity doing much better, with the band suggesting that “If life’s another game of chess/We lost a couple pieces” on You’re Not the Only One (Redemption Song), which mourns Bob Marley and John Lennon.

Even the album’s name and purple-painted cover – a nude woman surrounded by open bottles – seems to indicate a cool, glum bent from the band this time. Forchhammer is clearly working out a lot of personal stuff on 3, but it’s an album that largely leaves the listener, well, bummed out. – Mark Kennedy/AP