Albums are graded on a five-point scale of "Awful-Eh-Good-Great-Classic". I'm highly biased, so don't take it too seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Cage the Elephant

[#] Cage the Elephant (2008)

A bluesy rave-up against THE MAN.

Reviewed August 11, 2023

Who the fuck told these punks from Bowling Green they could prance around on stage, writing songs about greed, vices, and the way that politics turns people into sheep? Well, anyway, I like that guy, because this album rules. This is an album I've loved for a long, long time, since I was a young lad, and a phenomenal canary trap for if someone is overly-obsessed with every band they listen to being novel or if they want them to bring the good tunes. Is Cage the Elephant novel? Absolutely not. You've heard the skronking blues guitars, you've heard the gasping, shrieking vocals, you've heard the guitar solos nestled in after the second verse—but let me tell you, Cage the Elephant do them phenomenally well. If there's a weak part of this album, I've yet to find it.

There's something hilarious about a new band starting their record off with a gigantic "fuck you" to Da Criticz, but Cage is so self-assured on "In One Ear" and delivers the track with such a musical wallop that it barely even matters. Between Matt Schulz's larger-than-the-mix, extroverted howl, Jared Champion's deceptively-nuanced drumming, and Lincoln Parish's anguished guitar soloing, if there were confidence issues here, it sure doesn't show, not in the performances nor the songwriting. The group can muscle through a loud, fast tune like "Free Love", but it's when they introduce a bit of dynamics, like on the slightly psychedelic "Lotus" or the theme to the end of your rope, "Back Against the Wall", that Cage truly stick in your head and your heart. Bless them. I hope they make it big someday.

(I suppose it's a good thing I didn't have the edition with "Cover Me Again" at the end as a kid. Aside from subverting the self-importance of the rest of their lyrics with an aching admission of phoniness as emotional body armor, thus being a far more affecting closer than "Free Love", it hits so close to home for me that I don't know if I would've been able to handle it at the much rawer age I discovered this album at. It wasn't on the original album, so I can't rank it Essential, but it's an honorary Essential. Import a copy with "Cover Me Again". You're welcome.)