Album Review

Cage The Elephant – Thank You Happy Birthday

• 9th Feb 2011

With a stonking (no other word to describe it) great first album, Cage the Elephant had a lot to live up to. Album number two is good, and to fall into all clichés it’s most certainly a grower. Less country, more rock, and very familiar, although not in a bad way. It just lacks the arrogant spunk and brawl of the first album, but to be honest, when you’re from a place called Bowling Green, Kentucky, life isn’t always going to be exciting.

It is far more rowdy, more punk in ways than the first album and though I did not want to spend the whole time making comparisons, on the first listen unfortunately that’s exactly what I did. There’s no harm in that, and anyone that was a fan of the first album will admittedly do it, but this album is different. Less Beck, more Pixies, it is a clever way to appeal to a wider audience and show off their talent.

Aberdeen and Shake Me Down are two songs off the album that have the most influence of this new sound, think Nirvana and Indy Kidz that screams irony and hopefully the same amount of energy that they had notoriously when performing with the last album. There is an energy about this album and the changing in intensity of the songs, the change of singer Matt Schultz’s high pitched yelps to low soft drawls is balanced by the fragile, soft elements od the album.

It is undeniably good, it is difficult to dislike but it is not FANTASTIC, it’s not even an album with a few outstanding tracks and the rest mere filler, it’s just a good album with good songs. Rubber Ball, emphasises the bands talent for pop and the fact that this album still manages to win the band credibility AND tip them to become the next big thing. It’s almost a sense of déjà vu, was this not what was said with the last album in 2008?

I’d make sure you gave it a listen though, there are a few hits on it, and a few great tracks, Right Before My Eyes and Flow are two more to listen to, but don’t be expecting the lift me up party atmosphere that the last album had, but the second time round, when you’ve stopped comparing it to the first, self-titled album, Thank You Happy Birthday is an enjoyable and frankly very listenable album.