Tell Me I’m Pretty
Cage the Elephant
(RCA Records)
One and a half stars
There are 10 tracks on Cage the Elephant's fourth record, Tell Me I'm Pretty. I had to write down that number and double-check it for veracity because after repeated listening I could have sworn there were only two or three.
The formulaic Kentucky band is certainly successful. They’ll keep on riding along on the kind of vibes popularised by fellow mid-southern American acts, The Black Keys – indeed, Dan Auerbach was a producer here – or Band of Horses, or any poster-kids of the pseudo-Americana aesthetic that has somehow persisted.
It’s a sound that hasn’t been interesting or innovative in more than a decade but, hey, apparently boring sells.
Pretty finds the Grammy-approved band strumming and drumming along, while vocalist Matthew Schultz spits out, in his forgettable voice, the typical fare for the genre: women do or don’t be messin’ around, and the absolute, life-and-death need for love. And lots of and lots of rhyming. It’s nothing if not safe.
kjeffers@thenational.ae
