Song of the Moment

J. Cole - Lost Ones

Friday, May 21, 2010

Cage The Elephant - Self Titled



Friday brings a recommended review via JenInTosa again - and surprisingly, it's not country! I had never heard of these guys when she brought them to my attention, so I had no idea what to expect. I went on a rant the other day while reviewing Panic! that was talking about how bands who just blend their identity with other groups kind of drive me nuts. Well, I'm going to do a bit of a 180 with this review. It seems very evident to me that these guys are a blend of pretty much every rock band over the last 50 years. They have elements of classic rock, alt rock and straight up rock anthem rock. If I had to name bands I'd compare them to - it would be like a Sublime meets The Strokes meets Supertramp with a splash of Hendrix's guitar on tracks. And the crazy thing is if you put all that into the musical blender and hit puree, it comes out with something pretty different and cool. The only issue I have with this group is they've been making tuneage since 2005 and have only released one album. This came out in 2008 and they are STILL dropping singles on the radio in 2010. I can't even find an in production status for anything they might be working on. Regardless of that though, this is certainly worth checking out. I think people who enjoy grooving on new stuff will especially enjoy this. I'd put them in similar status as someone like Tab the Band who I reviewed a couple months ago. Kick back and enjoy B Siders!

TRACK LISTING:
1. In One Ear
2. James Brown
3. Ain't No Rest For the Wicked
4. Tiny Little Robots
5. Lotus
6. Back Against the Wall
7. Drones In the Valley
8. Judas
9. Back Stabbin' Betty
10. Sail To the Sun
11. Free Love

Listen To Samples

Top 3 Tracks:
1. Ain't No Rest For The Wicked
2. Back Stabbin' Betty
3. In One Ear

FINAL RATING:
4 out of 5 stars

4 comments:

  1. I knew you'd enjoy it... I didn't quite know how to classify these guys either. And we agree on the top song! (See, I'm not all country!)

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  2. Hey Welcome Back! It's been a while since you've been around the B Side!

    Your last couple recommendations have been great! In case you didn't see, David Nail was pretty cool as well.

    Crazy, but I'm actually going to run out and buy Cage later today!

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  3. Awesome! I was on vacation and then I had a lot of catching up at work to do!

    So I have this song that I love that's on the radio, "Lay Me Down" featuring Rome from Sublime. I did some wiki-research and the band released the same album twice in 2 years, the second being a "Special Edition" which contains the song I love! It's their only album, so I thought it was weird that they released it twice... did they not do it right the 1st time? I guess they are considered "reggae". Have you heard of Dirty Heads (Any Port in a Storm)? That's my next suggestion!

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  4. Ooooh, vacations!

    You know, I heard some rumblings about that a while back, maybe a year ago that the old leader of Sublime's family was suing those people for using Sublime's name and likeness. I heard about it at first, but then kinda forgot about it. I'll have to check out Dirty Heads though! Hopefully next week!

    As far as suggestions go, keep 'em coming in posts for now. I do have my team working on an actual suggestion box. I'm also looking for a second writer to contribute.

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