Neon Pill
Cage the Elephant’s *Neon Pill* arrives five years after their 2019 Grammy-winning global breakthrough *Social Cues*. Brothers and bandleaders Matt and Brad Shultz lost their father in the interim, the group mourned the death of friends, and Matt spent time in the hospital with severe depression. This tragedy, fight, spirit, and resolve is messily and triumphantly wrapped into *Neon Pill*, an album that finds the band forging their own sound devoid of outside influence, channeling their rollicking live show into a meditation on life, death, and music’s healing power. Take the psych-folk-leaning title track, which tells the story of Matt’s battle with mental illness, looking for answers but only finding more questions. As the band so often does, they mask dark and searching lyrics with melodic candy, making these philosophical queries go down more easily. On the track, Matt sings: “It\'s a hit and run, oh no/Double-crossed by a neon pill/Like a loaded gun, my love/I lost control of the wheel/Double-crossed by a neon pill.” Just like the story of the band over the past five years, the track includes a phoenix-like resurgence: “Knocked down, not out, let\'s roll.”
Cage the Elephant's sixth album is a mixture of their most successful elements and a bounty of newer indie pop elements fluid enough to appeal to a younger generation’s taste.
Cage The Elephant have been a consistent force on the indie scene since the release of their debut album in 2008 which contained the smash hit 'Ain't No
CAGE THE ELEPHANT broke out in the 2010s, a time when alternative rock was trying to find its identity and separate itself from heavier styles of rock, such as post-grunge and nu-metal. The band was among the alt-rock heroes of the decade, bringing a refreshing pop and indie-focused sound to the alt...
Neon Pill by Cage The Elephant album review by David Saxum for Northern Transmissions. The LP is now out via RCA Records and DSPs
The troubled former One Direction star feels surprisingly at ease in Room Under the Stairs; Cage the Elephant bring killer summer rock