Cage The Elephant - Cage The Elephant (Relentless/DSP)
2/5
By: Sam Crawford
Rock 'n' roll is dead! Rock 'n' roll is alive! Lets at least continue to discuss the genre until we forget all about what rock 'n' roll was, or what it's supposed to be today.
Cage The Elephant forcefully throw themselves at us like a heavy piece of dead wood painted in bright garish colours, and sprayed with Tesco premium deodorant to disguise the Aldi own brand deodorant underneath. Full of commercially assembled nuggets of pop rock, CTE's songs swagger about like that five foot kid at your school who boasted of his karate skills taught to him by his "well 'ard" uncle Geoff.
'In One Ear' has the all too familiar widdle widdle guitar and predictable drum roll intro, before the vocalist spurts out some attitude driven lyrics about not listening to those who berate them, highlighted by the chorus, "It goes in one ear, and right out the other, people talking shit but you know I never bother."
Excuse me then while I talk shit, but Cage The Elephant's sound grabs every cliché written in the recycled version of the "rock 'n' roll" bible, and recycles it once more. Vocal style and melody is lifted from the likes of Jet (who lifted it from someone else), while a stab at Arctic Monkeys brash attitude is also evident.
Other songs like 'Free Love' further cement unoriginality of this album. The song hints at the era it's taken from in the title, with Hendrix style guitar riffs and a bass line that sounds similar to 'Fire.' At best the album might introduce some younger listeners who have been brought up on Pussycat Dolls to broaden their horizon and discover some decent bands in later life, but it doesn't stop CTE adding to the myriad of done to death rock bands in the mainstream.
Cage The Elephant's debut is full of exceedingly catchy radio friendly tunes, in the same way that Jet has had a strong command over the airwaves. The trouble is, Jet have always been a clichéd rock band; the last thing we need is a second rate Jet.
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