(Sony)

FFS! Another retro rock & roll band.

In the first 30 seconds of Don Letts’ documentary The Clash: Westway To The World, Joe Strummer says, “in rock & roll origination is perhaps instinct, not intellect.” If Strummer’s words are true then Kentucky rock & roll five-piece Cage The Elephant are purveyors of a solely instinctual rock sound. Discovered at SxSW rehashing the kind of diabolical rock & roll that was perhaps poignant in 2001, Cage The Elephant and their self-titled debut are another in a long list of bands to have caused mass hysteria amongst A&R types. The band is a cash cow and they know it. “The Devil is my pal / I’m an anti-social anarchist,” sings frontman Matt Schultz in a bizarre rap-rock style on In One Ear. It’s supposed to be an extended middle finger sentiment but comes off like a badly executed clichéd cliché. Lead single Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked sounds like Louis XIV attempting ‘biting’ social commentary via a collection of dusty bluegrass records before the album’s most thrilling moment comes in the danceable guitar lines of Tiny Little Robots. It’s a moment of genuine abandon before the song nosedives into oblivion during a muddled, fuzzy mess of a bridge that goes on and on and on. Bombing further with Judas and Back Stabbin’ Betty, Cage The Elephant makes you wonder when the vicious cycle of retro rocking bands will indeed die. If kids are discovering rock & roll via the intelligence insulting radio-ready atrocities of Cage The Elephant, we may as well just give up now and hype role-playing games.

**½

JACK LANGRIDGE

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