This weekend, besides being filled with candy, was also an intense drawing weekend. And with that means I also had the opportunity to binge some new tunes! Fresh in the mail came Cage the Elephant’s fifth EP, titled Social Cues. The radio already had me very fond of their lead single “Ready to Let Go,” and I was starting to warm up to the track collaborating with Beck called “Night Running,” so I was pretty pumped to give the full album a listen.
And it did not disappoint! Since I am a product of the 90s, I got this album in CD format, so I pulled out my very old player and sat down at the table to draw and to jam. I will say, since it’s a CD player, any mildly aggressive movement on my part meant that the player freaked out, stopped, and started over. This means I really, really like the first two tracks! “Broken Boy” is a very strong start to the album, quick and punchy, and definitely set the general tone of what to expect on the twelve songs that followed. The next song, title track “Social Cues,” did follow in those footsteps, but there were a few slower songs to round the album out: specifically, ending song “Goodbye” had a sweet melancholia to it that made me sad there were no songs left.
Cage the Elephant have been around since my high school days, so I feel more intimately familiar with them than some other bands, but solely based on radio singles. I’ve loved every single one of them, but never felt compelled to give their full albums a listen until 2015’s Tell Me I’m Pretty. If you are like me and like all of their radio hits, then please, do yourself a favor, and listen to all of their albums in full! Social Cues is no exception! Honestly, this falls right behind Foals album that came out earlier this spring.