Thank You, Happy Birthday
- Cage the Elephant
- Band Name: Cage the Elephant
- Record Label: Red Ink
- Release Date: Jan 11, 2011
- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
May 2, 201180Matt Shultz makes a natural showman firmly in the mouth Perry Farrell mould. Front of house taken care of, it's then just a matter of pairing the noise and excitement, something they achieve in short, sharp bursts with room to spare. [Apr 2011, p.98]
-
Mar 29, 201180Taking cues from the Pixies and '90s grunge--Sell Yourself or Japanese Buffalo could be Pixies mainman Black Francis in a rage--but rowdier and caustic, they are compelling. [19 Mar 2011, p.51]
-
Mar 29, 201180They've sorted through a kitbag of 80 songs and made good on the potential. [Apr 2011, p.77]
-
Mar 21, 201180Front-loaded with jagged riffs and the squalls of Matt Shultz, this is storming.
-
Mar 18, 201180The Kentucky combo Cage the Elephant manage to find a new wrinkle on the face of US indie-punk, thanks to an enthusiasm for yoking catchy melodies to abrasive guitar riffs that recalls the Pixies.
-
Mar 17, 201180Casting UK indie influences aside, the Kentucky five-piece has sought out the best in US punk and proto-grunge, layering exhilarating darkness and sinister sweetness, and some of the catchiest melodies you'll hear all year.
-
Jan 11, 201180It's an alarmingly great album in most ways superior to their ballyhooed debut. [Feb 2011, p.86]
-
Jan 10, 201180The new album is more abrasive, rowdier, more unstable and pushier in the right ways.
-
Jan 11, 201175In truth, Thank You Happy Birthday is at its best when the band doesn't beat us over the head with its angst and instead focuses on simply making music that sounds good.
-
Jan 11, 201175They run like rabbits from the stultifying bottom end of grunge, instead honoring what was hot and sweet about '90s rock: the raucousness of its hooks and the accessibility of its noise.
-
Jan 6, 201175Charismatic lead shrieker Matt Shultz wears his slacker influences proudly.
-
Mar 21, 201170Basically, the album's a mess of melody, noise, stupidity, screaming and big choruses that does its bit for the all-important Campaign Against Intellectualism In Rock. Fun.
-
Mar 21, 201170This, their second has already topped the charts over in the US. Why? Well, it's exuberant, bratty and crushingly relentless.er been so fun.
-
Mar 18, 201170They don't offer much that's new, but this album is far too enjoyable to squabble over that.
-
Mar 11, 201170Throughout, CTE prove that they are an alternative act that's not scared of offending mainstream sensibilities. Time to break their locks.
-
Jan 11, 201170While the grand and sometimes snotty lyrics might not be to all tastes, anyone who misses the days when rock radio loved Nirvana and Blur will find his retro rave-up easy to embrace.
-
Jan 11, 201170Cage the Elephant treat their guitars like percussion instruments, filling the songs with all kinds of clanging, crashing and thudding, and augmenting the clamor with buzzing keyboards.
-
Jan 6, 201170Sounds terrible, yet these guys attack tracks like "Sell Yourself" with so much pent-up energy that Shultz ends up selling his crackpot ideas.
-
Feb 25, 201160As the hungover economy slowly gets out of bed and scratches itself, that's just what we need: one big melting pot of a party.
-
Jan 26, 201160Is this record the cure to the ails that is the sophomore LP? Yes and no. Yes, it's new and fresh and spilling over with more of their unique brand of high-energy rock; no, as there's some missteps and growth is often traded out for immature jabs.
-
Jan 14, 201160Though some of these songs would work well on their own, as a full length, they lack fluidity, consistency, and an overall theme that usually binds songs together.
-
Jan 11, 201160It all seems more diverse than it actually sounds, and true, the band borrows plenty, including some room to play around with the sound, but Thank You Happy Birthday transcends its genres, and would be better simply labeled as a solid second step.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 11 out of 12
-
Mixed: 1 out of 12
-
Negative: 0 out of 12
-
10
-
It's the Pixies, but more grounded.