X Ambassadors

X Ambassadors’ KIDinaKORNER labelmates Imagine Dragons and Jamie N Commons appear on VHS (“Fear” and “Low Life,” and “Jungle,” respectively), but the most noticeable guests are the band members’ younger, more restless selves. The songs on VHS are woven with a series of “interludes,” or bits of audio from the archives from their family video albums. “Moving Day” and “First Gig” provide a cinematic narrative and pay homage to their love for hip-hop. (Classic albums from De La Soul, Dr. Dre, Fugees, and Eminem also featured micro-dramas or gags between tracks.) “I wanted the album to feel like a movie,” the band’s singer and guitarist Sam Harris says. Consequently, the songs on VHS are about movement, speed, and the determination to navigate away from heartbreak and the constraints of small-town status quo. “Run away with me / Lost souls and revelry,” Sam sings, young-Springsteen-like, on the album’s first single, the Top 5 Alternative radio hit “Renegades” — a bouncing folk-rock ode to the misfits and adventurers. Then he continues: “Running wild and running free / Two kids, you and me.”