Imagine Dragons: “Bones” Single Review

Close your eyes and imagine a world where Imagine Dragons doesn’t exist. Close your eyes and imagine a time where Night Visions was never released. Close your eyes and disconnect your bias from the “ideal vision” of this band.

Now open your eyes and give a listen to “Bones.”

Imagine Dragons gets a bad rap for being the Nickelback of modern rock – and for good reason. I have yet to hear an Imagine Dragons album that I can enjoy the whole way through. Sure, Smoke & Mirrors was okay, and I was more favorable to Evolve than most critics, but it’s not an unpopular opinion that Imagine Dragons releases some mediocre-to-crap records.

But you have to admit that they can write a darn good single. From “Believer” to “Natural” to “Wrecked,” every album that is released from the band always has at least one really good single.

So forgetting the idea of Night Visions, I take a minute to give the new single, “Bones,” a try. I listen to it once, walk away for a minute, and then replay it to let go of my own held biases. My first impression upon the second listen: this song sounds a lot like Portugal. The Man. The vocal effects aren’t normally something that appeals to me in music, but the vocals that start at “My patience is waning” and continue into the chorus are reminiscent of songs like “So Young” or “Evil Friends.”

My next impression is that it also reminds me of “Whatever it Takes,” a song from Evolve that I happen to love. So as I listen to the chorus, not only do I start to bounce around to the beat of the drums, but I even start to sing along.

Besides the music making me want to dance, the words of the lyrics subtly imply a different idea that adds to the dark taste of the song. The atmosphere of the synths and echos match perfectly with the song as lead singer Dan Reynolds is “waiting ’til the reaper takes [his] life.” The pre-chorus mimics the mental image of a ghost crying out, and you can almost see the skeletons dancing in the chorus.

But specifically after the second verse, if you listen closely to the bass in the pre-chorus, you can hear it pulsing like a heartbeat. And as it continues to beat, thinking about the idea of a “feeling in your bones,” you remember that inside your bones – inside your ribcage – your heart is beating. And yet the heart is never once verbally mentioned in the song.

“Bones” tells the story of a man going through a depressive phase, probably even considering taking his own life. As he walks through his past and criticizes his failures over and over again, he begins to disconnect from his self; looking in the mirror just to see himself in front of him. With this disassociation, the organ beating inside your chest becomes more apparent and foreign, and you feel without muscles to move and your energy is sapped from you. The fact that the heart is never named in the lyrics speaks a lot to the song; it is as if it doesn’t exist at all. It is a foreign object, and it is the only thing that is keeping the body away from death.

Maybe Reynolds and his co-writers never took this into mind while writing. But that doesn’t take away from the impact it has. And even though authors might not write their stories with the same principles in mind that your AP English teacher does, there are conscious decisions made to include certain aspects – like the pulsing bass to mimic the heart – that are influenced by subconscious connections that we don’t immediately bring to mind. So “go ahead and throw your stones,” because I think this song deserves more praise than the bias might offer.

Rating: 3/5