In mid-January, Cage the Elephant released their second album, titled: Thank You, Happy Birthday. The band received big fame when their single, “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” was used as the promotional song in commercials for the hit video game Borderlands. Their first album was mostly comprised of great guitar riffs and stunning lyrics. Many of the songs were of the lead singer’s discontent with society. This new album however, seems to take on a different tone.
With a dramatic amount less post-production editing, most of the album has a sort of “garage rock” feel to it. Many of the songs don’t seem to go anywhere, say anything important or thought provoking, or they’re just cryptic as hell. The songs “Sabertooth Tiger”, “Aberdeen”, and “Japanese Buffalo” vaguely recall Kurt Cobain: strange and highly cryptic.
Despite this, the album isn’t devoid of messages. The song “Indy Kidz” is just like it sounds–it’s about indy kids. From the lyrics, you can tell that Matt Shultz, the lead singer, doesn’t care too much for Indy lifestyle. Or at least posers. In the opening, Shultz says “I wanna be just like you,” in a rather creepy way. The bridge has Shultz speaking “I gotta go down to the school house and get some shoes. And get the right haircut. Get the right haircut!” in a nervous and sort of desperate way. The whole thing is sort of creepy and a little infuriating. You can really feel Shultz’s distaste for posers and hipsters.
Most of the songs on the album are fast, upbeat pieces that make a good “Cardio at the Gym” playlist to take a break from the techno you usually listen to when you want an energy boost. But some of the songs are a bit slower, like the single “Shake Me Down” and “Rubber Ball”, with “Rubber Ball” as a more extreme example. Also, “Right Before My Eyes” has a mildly upbeat instrumental track and mellow vocals that gives the song a sort of tension. But for fans of adrenaline and toe-tapping, tracks like “Around My Head”, “Always Something”, “Sell Yourself” and “Aberdeen” might be more your thing. It’s hard not to start a rush listening to songs like those.
The stronger tracks are “Always Something”, “Aberdeen”, “Shake Me Down”, “Rubber Ball”, “Right Before My Eyes”, and “Around My Head”. The weaker songs are “Indy Kidz”, “2024”, “Sell Yourself”, “Sabertooth Tiger”, “Japanese Buffalo”, and “Flow”. But honestly, I like a lot of the more lacking tracks. “2024” has good instrumentals, and while it’s not much of a song for the ages, it’s a good song. The same goes for “Indy Kidz”, it’s a bit of a patchy song. And it’s a little creepy. Maybe unnecessarily so. The track list is as follows:
“Always Something” – 3:41
“Aberdeen” – 3:12
“Indy Kidz” – 5:02
“Shake Me Down” – 3:31
“2024” – 3:10
“Sell Yourself” – 2:11
“Rubber Ball” – 3:47
“Right Before My Eyes” – 3:14
“Around My Head” – 3:11
“Sabertooth Tiger” – 2:51
“Japanese Buffalo” – 3:03
“Flow” – 7:43
Reporter’s album rating: 7.9/10
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