Cage the Elephant – Neon Pill

Singer Matt Shultz has been through the wringer recently. The Cage the Elephant frontman and his brother, guitarist Brad Shultz, lost their father nine months into the pandemic, thus triggering a depressive episode and breakdown for the singer. In Neon Pill, the band tried to channel all the hurt and pain from that period, and they do so in a deft and surprisingly unique way.

The album is produced by John Hill, who also worked on the band’s previous 2019 record Social Cues, along with the brilliant Afraid of Heights by Wavves and Bleachers’ Strange Desire. Coming off the back of the Grammy award-winning Social Cues, Neon Pill moves with a calmer, less chaotic energy than the band’s earlier work.

This is not your typical rock album – there are smatterings of funk and pop influences, with many tracks putting keys before the guitar. Opener Hifi (True Light) is easy to like straight off the bat, and while the tune is tight and precise, like much of the record, it’s the lyrics that deliver the turmoil: “Side corridor, laying on the floor / Like a tidal wave, I’m an open door / I’m a wall-fly, by and bye / Where do we go, what did it take / Windows with pain, starting to break.” The title track Neon Pill is a melancholic and poetic pop song, while the short and sweet Metaverse has agreeable echoes of The Strokes.

By far the strongest piece on the record is Out Loud. Released as a single back in February, it’s an emotive work of art. Powerful in its raw delivery, it never goes much bigger than Shultz’s voice, some keys and some strings – and it doesn’t need to. Shultz explains that the track is dedicated to his father: “My dad’s the reason we discovered music in the first place. When he died, Out Loud just poured out of me. My efforts towards the song were deeply rooted in paying honour to him, and I knew it meant a lot to Brad too.”

The album picks up the tempo and attitude toward the second half. Good Time is a fantastically cynical truth-telling of getting wasted to hide from your pain, and probably the second-best number after Out Loud. The record closes on the aptly named Over Your Shoulder, concluding the tail of upheaval: “Don’t look back over your shoulder / You don’t need me to ask / If it feels like it gets colder / Every season will pass.”

Neon Pill is a collection of perfectly crafted songs executed with honest and profound lyrics. It’s genre-bending in the sense that it feels incorrect to call it an entirely rock or pop album, it is simply a Cage the Elephant album. For anyone who’s been through a tough time mentally, or has lost loved ones, this record will speak to you. Every track’s a winner.

Hannah Broughton
Image: Neil Krug

Neon Pill is released on 17^th May 2024. For further information or to order the album visit Cage the Elephant’s website here.

Watch the video for the single here: