Cage the Elephant - Thank You Happy Birthday, a review

Aside from a penchant for perpetually pulling silly faces in press shots, I've been unable to surmise much about Cage the Elephant until recently. Indeed, the album was released in early January - but the powers that be (namely albums I've actively seeked out) have prevented me from writing a review. Still, better late than never. Having achieved a staggering #2 on the Billboard album chart, something seems to suggest I might have just missed a very big and very crowded hype train.

Opener 'Always Something' is a pretty sinister-sounding ballroller; a series of paranoid and cautionary lyrics set to creepy guitar riffs. "It never works out the way I wrote it in my head" suggests a deal of frustration, which was elaborated on in an interview with vocalist and songwriter Matt Schultz:

“There were a lot of things in my life I was trying to control and it all unraveled in a real bad way,” Matt says. “Because everything fell apart I had to face up to everything. Some songs are a direct attack on myself.”

Not exactly the most beautiful of places for a song, 'Aberdeen' is indeed a tale of "bloody feet" and "creeps", all set over what many fans have cited as a Pixies-sounding track, and it's a pretty fitting description. 'Indy Kidz' is an amusing pastiche of the self-importance of most of the music scene ("I don't watch TV because it's a box of lies") set inbetween grungy sounds and screams very reminiscent of Nirvana (and recent Foo Fighters, particularly White Limo).

The noise is then reigned in a little with 'Shake Me Down', the album's lead single, a slight nod to the Shins (a band who I've never really appreciated) with its bassline but with a noticeably more accommodating sound; less derivative, more to the point. Je l'aime beaucoup. With its varying rhythms comes '2024', easily one of the record's catchiest offerings and somewhere between the Libertines and Pixies. Granted, that's a pretty vast gulf in which you could find many, but whatever. With 'Sell Yourself' Schultz almost sounds like Art Brut's Eddie Argos, which for me is not a good sound at all. Yet the energy behind the track is pretty inspired; the robotic parts near the end are almost frightening.

So 'Rubber Ball' comes as a nice comedown. Sounding like the more serene of Favourite Worst Nightmare, it's a perfectly-executed shot at trying to find your way into a Judd Apatow or Diablo Cody movie soundtrack, which sounds like an insult but even I can be swayed by a little Belle and Sebastian. 'Right Before Your Eyes' continues the romantic sounds, before 'Around My Head' capitalises on that kind of Semisonic fanbase, a pretty harmonic track that's a little bit uninspired if anything but is by no means offensively bad.


'Sabertooth Tiger', whether that be an Americanism or a misspelling, is a dizzying cascade of distortion and post-punk riffs that are as catchy as they are hectic. A frontrunning contender for the most bizarre song title of the year, 'Japanese Buffalo' is at first a nursery rhyme before violently capsizing into a probable future pub-rock anthem, being so manically screamed and almost primal; complete with a lighters-in-the-air chorus. The record finishes with 'Flow', an at first acoustic paradise that sounds somewhat Modest Mouse in its delivery, the second half (or hidden track, if you will) being an alternate version of 'Right Before My Eyes' that sounds a little like the chord series for The Fratellis' 'Whistle For The Choir' which isn't exactly a bad thing.

The record is practically everything that a modern rock band can aspire to - there's raw energy, touching balladry, infectious pop and all the while retaining some credibility. To pull this all off convincingly deserves credit.

Rating: 8/10
Highlights: 2024, Rubber Ball, Always Something, Right Before My Eyes, Flow
Avoid: n/a, though Around My Head is possibly the most disposable.