ARTIST: Cage The Elephant
ALBUM: Tell Me I’m Pretty
LABEL: RCA
RELEASE DATE: December 18, 2015
Uncaged!
Written by Silas Valentino
Tell Me I’m Pretty buzzes with identity crises – yet has this not been Cage the Elephant’s modus operandi all along? Since their 2008 crash and crush onto the contemporary rock scene via instant hit “Aint’ No Rest for the Wicked,” Cage’s usual way of doing things has been to maintain eyeline with their clearly stated influences without sacrificing their Kentucky-born view. “Ain’t No Rest” was a bbq slider that had as much G. Love & Special Sauce as it did Jack White. 2010’s sophomore follow up Thank You Happy Birthday paid homage to Kurt Cobain and his roots – track two is unapologetically titled “Aberdeen” – although more noticeably the album was riddled with a surf punk pathos à la the Pixies.
One of the final album’s of 2015 was also Cage’s fourth LP: Tell Me I’m Pretty; where the show running Shultz brothers seem to be practically pleading through the album title for their audience to reaffirm their status. It’s a move that doesn’t falter their ambition; this is still some of the better top-notch rock currently on sale at the market. It’s just that Cage’s newest release, which remains utterly consistent with their past discography, wears its musical motivation loudly.
Dan Auerbach might one day be known solely for this production expertise. He made Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence sound magnificent, uncovered the African desert guitar guru Bombino and helmed Dr. John’s best album in a generation. But he’s also a Black Key. And marks left by his hands are all over Tell Me I’m Pretty’s production, both evident and enjoyable. Tell Me’s lead off single was the ripper “Mess Around” which critics found obnoxiously similar to recent Keys records. But in truth “Mess Around” is the best song produced by The Black Keys since Brothers – it’s just sung in the key of Cage.
The rattle and rough of the Blues activates Tell Me through opener “Cry Baby” which is one of the album’s three tracks that exceed four minutes in length. The song’s scope suggests the band had decided to legitimately develop and hash out this meaty tune, which cultivates in a bona fide Blues breakdown during its final minute where the guitars are gruff as the beats big.
What soon follows is the jubilant and poppy “Sweetie Little Jean” which dares to trivialize and repurpose the unsolved abduction of a seven-year-old neighbor of the Shultz brothers when they were children in Bowling Green, KY. The tragic tale of influence is outlined in a recent Rolling Stone profile on the sibling bandleaders who give context to the lyrics: “Candlelight vigils being held in silence/On the channel four/And they’ve knocked on every door.”
But the reprocessing of childhood innocence loss is itself immediately lost due to the cut’s feeble nature. The choppy and corny piano pulse makes for an unsettling trip – as though Alice flew through a glass window and began desperately grasping for Sgt. Pepper’s colorful coattails. “How’s it feel to be a ghost?” wonders aloud singer Matt Shultz. John Lennon was clever with his twisted childlike songwriting; he wasn’t banal.
The latest scoop into the Bowling Green rock band does its job by keeping it familiar. Cobain was replaced with Auerbach and the four band members play confidently without the help of founding guitarist Lincoln Parish, who left Cage in 2013. There aren’t any lingering afterthoughts informed by single hits like “Cigarettes and Daydreams” yet Cage the Elephant march on. Tell Me I’m Prettyultimately proves to suffice though lacks in achieving anything more.