THANK YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY by Cage The Elephant

The influence of The Pixies is far-reaching, for a group of people as technically mediocre as Black Francis and his posse`, but the music of The Pixies was much, much more than individual lines, patterns and phrases. It was a low, mellow rumble of clever lyrics, interesting arrangements and a sound that was minimalistic, not simple. Comparisons between The Pixies and Cage The Elephant have been drawn frequently, and it does not take a lot to see why. Matthew Shultz is a blatant Black Francis imitator, and Cage The Elephant produces numerous elements (frill-free bass lines, straight-up four-by-four drum beats and whine-toned vocals) reminiscent of ‘Come On Pilgrim’, but their music is not so much uncomplicated as it is plain thoughtless. Take ‘Flow’, for instance, which features random platitudes over a marching beat and repetitive phrases separating what we are given to understand are verses. ‘Around My Head’ has Matthew Shultz singing verses in a Dylan-esque fashion, screaming twice, and then breaking into a refrain that is essentially every post-punk song of the last decade. The lack of depth shows further in songs like the futuristic ’2024’ which starts interestingly with three successive drum patterns in the first fifteen seconds, only to end in a predictable punk melody. ‘Indy Kidz’, which I figure is some sort of meta-mockery of the indie sub-culture could have been a lot subtler than hair-cuts and foot-wear and will fail to even budge the pedestal that ‘Juno’ has placed the indie sub-culture on. The only strong song on the record is ‘Shake Me Down’, where the melody-meets-edge concept of The Pixies is faithfully adhered to. Arpeggiated chords flow into distorted barre chord progressions and the beat is heavy on the ride. ‘Aberdeen’ is a tribute to grunge (obviously), with vocals ranging from mid-register to hoarse screeches, notable for the remarkable clay-mation music video accompanying it. ‘Thank You, Happy Birthday’ has received greater acclaim than its eponymously titled predecessor, ‘Cage The Elephant’, which is strange to me, because for me, Matthew Shultz, with his obsession with The Pixies, seems to have colonized the blues-rock influence on songs like ‘Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked’, which acted as a beautiful counter-point to the core of their music (slide guitar over a rap-rock-like structure that sounded beautiful). That counter-point is gone, and so is my interest in Cage The Elephant.