Review Summary: A good album with gems wrapped in a bag of strange, facing a new direction.
I find when I talk to other musicians about Cage The Elephant they are always either on the love, or the hate side. The love says they are innovative and a breath of fresh air on the alt rock scene. Meanwhile you have the other side who love to flame them, and say they are hacks at their respective instruments and couldn't play an original tune to save their lives. Then you have me.. and I happen to feel a bit both ways.
Cage is a band that isn't quite sure where their loyalties lie for their exact sound, but if you think about it is that really such a bad thing? A good majority of people tend to be hypocritical about music in general, and what I mean by that is if a band's new album is very similar to a previous release you will hear, "One trick pony/Why can't they branch out?/Bad musicians/etc." On the flip to that if a band starts heading towards a new sound you'll usually hear, "Their old stuff is better/they're not even 'X' anymore/They're selling out their sound to stay 'current'/etc."
So how does Thank You, Happy Birthday actually stack up? If you look at it like it is it's on entity, It's good effort. Some good, and some sub-par, and some right in between. It's an album that you have to take time to digest because your first impression might be different than if you give yourself time to analyze everything after a few listens, and I personally like albums that offer little snippets you would normally miss on the first go. There's a little something for everybody on this record, and by that I mean it ranges from very soft and casual, to straight forward rock, to downright strange atmospheric pieces.
The opening track is a very good overall feel of what the album has to offer. Strange, almost haunting parts that give way to snippets of straight out good rocking flow. Of course the singles are what drive the album for most people, but some of the best work is hidden behind the radio-friendly hits. Around My Head is a great Pixies-esque rocker that will stay in your head for weeks if you give it the chance.
As I mentioned, this effort has it's share of slow/atmospheric pop inspired tunes. Flow actually come off as one of the most interesting tunes on the album. It's a vaguely hypnotic piece with a pulsing bass drum keeping you anchored in the sea of guitar and vocal melodies that just.. flow.
But as would be expected, not every song is amazing (depending on who you ask.) Songs like Sell Yourself, Indy Kidz, and Saber Tooth Tiger. The latter is a song that's reminiscent of The Pillows meets Nirvana, but isn't pulled off all that well. If you like dissonance and more atonal thinking this might be up your alley, but it's not really one of the stand outs and in fact gets lost with the aforementioned songs and others not talked about.
On the hole, Thank You, Happy Birthday is certainly a decent effort for the alt rock world. I wouldn't say it's essential to own, but it is most definitely worth checking out. Chances are you'll like at least one tune in this cluster of confusion. At the end of the day I'm satisfied with a good majority of it, but it makes me curious as to where Cage is going in the journey of finding one's sound.
Recommended listens:
It's Always Something
Aberdeen
Right Before My Eyes
Around My Head
Flow
