Cage The Elephant - Tell Me I'm Pretty

Cage The Elephant
Tell Me I'm Pretty
2015
Cage The Elephant - Tell Me I'm Pretty

If you can turn your clock back to 2008 you will probably remember a song called "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked". Unless you were hiding in a cave somewhere you could not miss this throwback rock song being played over and over on the radio and everywhere else. Obviously a great deal of time has gone by since then, however Cage The Elephant are still slugging way making festival ready gritty rock and roll. Tell Me I'm Pretty is the new record and more than what it is the band seems to want to convey what it is not. This record is not a reaction, nor an attempt to stay relevant. Rather than bow down to common trends. They are going to play rock and roll that speaks to them and that is about it. What is different about this album however is the almost complete lack of energy. FOr a rock band that had a great front man who was able to growl and push lyrics on to audiences this album just sort of floats along, content. There is almost no urgency nothing saying this needs to get out because we really have something that you need to hear.

Towards the end of the record you are bombarded with more of the same. "Punchin' Bag" in particular is the one track where it becomes so repetitive it is difficult not to get angry with the track. The song is only 3:47 but it feels like an eternity of "I'm not your Punchin' Bag" being repeated over and over and over. The Lo-Fi aspects of the record are not very inventive or really seem necessary at all. Sometimes Lo-Fi can be used to bring a certain vibe to a record, and that's fine, but used here it is almost just a contrived move to give the album a classic rock feel. A better way to accomplish this goal would be to make music that people would consider classic. There is so much more that this record could be, so much more potential, but it is wasted on something pedestrian. If you think you will be missing out by skipping this record, don't worry you have heard something exactly the same from exactly the same type of band in past.

5.2 out of 10