Cage the Elephant - 'Thank You, Happy Birthday' Album Review

Cage the Elephant is a band that single handedly returned my faith in popular rock music a couple of years ago with their debut release in 2008. The band was unique in sea of crap and brought a funkiness to the radio. Well the bands back with a new album. Is it as epic and game changing as the first album or does it fall into the dreaded sophomore slump?

I'll start by saying that 'Thank you, Happy Birthday' is an excellent album. I enjoyed almost every single second of the album and its going to be really hard to point out the faults because there almost aren't any and the faults that you could find with the album could be chalked up to personal tastes as always. So keep that in my when I'm talking about the problems with the album that I had.

'Thank You, Happy Birthday' has an almost perfect album 'flow' meaning that the songs fit exactly where they should to keep your interest and not boarder on the boring. Cage The elephant also over the course of the two or so years since the release of the self titled debut decided that their new thing was going to be experimenting with different sounds. This is the albums strongest positive. None of the songs sound alike in tone or tempo. You feel like each individual song is its own experience and thats not an easy feat nor is it one that many bands go to the trouble to implement. Almost every song has a part in it that I absolutely loved. To call the songs catchy would be an understatement. These songs resemble crack when talking about the addictiveness of them. If you're a fan of rock music I dare you to try NOT to listen to some of these songs more than once. The albums also a good length. None of the songs over stayed their welcome and the album itself had very reasonable times for the songs. This is also important because the content that they are working on might take some getting used to for people. The lead singer's (Matthew Shultz) vocals have matured a great deal since the last release. Some of his singing actually sounds good, hes still much more comfortable in that talking rap style that he used on the first album. The music itself is much more diverse this time around as well.

The biggest problem I have with the album is the name of the album. I'm not sure the meaning or if it even makes sense. It grabs attention but I think it also has the potential to dissuade some listeners because of its goofy exterior. There is also one song ,'Sabertooth Tigar', that has a more traditional punk section and while I like the overall song, that part wasn't my favorite and almost ruined the song for me.

Cage the Elephant has mastered their sound and this album will be the bench mark that rock albums will be based on for the year for myself and I'm sure others. The diversity of the music and the excellence of the vocals are very strong points and lead this album into the greatness that it deserves.

I give 'Thank You, Happy Birthday' 5 Elephants out of 5



Track listing
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)