Cage The Elephant (Digital)

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Cage The Elephant

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Well the first time I had ever heard of the band was with vocalist Matt Schultz appearance on British comedy show "Never Mind The Buzzcocks." He formed an unlikely alliance with Stephen Fry and Josie Long. The bands music wasn't played or even that heavily mentioned in the show, but thanks to Matts antic I became intrigued at what this band had to offer. Were they just another indy band with nothing new to give, or were they something fresh and original amongst a bland "pop-rock indy" music scene.

They are definitely the latter in that respect and have brought to a world audience possibly the best album of 2008. From "In One Ear" to "Free Love" Cage the Elephant present a delightful, cool, loud and crazy album that will have all the bland indy music lovers wake up and realise originality and talent when they hear it.

The vocals of Matt Schultz is definitely the most enticing part of the band as although it's not something I haven't heard before, he has a sort of reminiscent rebellious tone to his voice that I'm not sure why but remind me of the great punk bands the Ramones, The Clash and even the Sex Pistols. Cage The Elephant are nowhere near as controversial as these legendary bands, but they're certainly just as loud and abrupt and really make you want to get on your feet and go nuts when listening to their music.

The guitar and bass by Brad Shultz, Daniel Titchenor and Lincoln Parish definitely add to that old school feel and sometimes mimic the equally awesome guitar talents of Pistols guitarist Steve Jones.

My Top 5 are

1. Aint No Rest For The Wicked

2. In One Ear

3. Back Stabbin' Betty

4. James Brown

5. Free Love

I bought this album because I thought it would be interesting. I heard Ain't no rest for the wicked, and thought that the band was blues infuenced. They are not. At least not much. The music and lyrics are a small step above childish, yeah we know war is bad, life is hard and girls are mean, and even at that they just didn't really "take me there," so to speak. The guitar lines are basic, sometimes even annoying. The vocals, musicly, is pretty cool. Guy has a good sound to him. The bass lines are actually not bad at all.

I took the time before i typed this up to look up how old these guys are. I didn't find out (meaning it wasn't on wiki). If these guys are, say 20 or younger you can expect great things from one or all of them. If they are older than that i would guess that they won't mature enough to really become a great band. They have potential but they just didn't impress me on this album.