Cage the Elephant - Melophobia

We're going to start this blog out right, with Melophobia!  Cage the Elephant's third album, released late 2013.

You will like this if:
you like rock music, or any music really

Avoid this if:
rock music elevates your blood pressure to dangerous levels


Melophobia (the fear of music)

If you know me (as opposed to my thousands of daily readers who haven't yet had the pleasure), you already know that Cage was one of my favorite bands before this album came out.
With all the hype this album received before it was out there, and the precedence set by their earlier two albums, I was, well, a little Melophobic about what I would find here. But that fear was quickly laid to rest. This album is hands down the best of the year and a very real early contender for album of the decade.

The music is a plethora of contradictions.  It is smooth and it is chaotic.  Pretty and dirty.  Deep and shallow. Dog and cat.
One of the biggest changes from their two earlier albums is that they seem to use a lot more distortion guitar.  But they maintain that 'every song is way different, but very much Cage the Elephant' feel.  Even within the song, a nice mellow tune will shift seamlessly into a heavy sound.  It is quite impressive how they can change the mood of a song with little effort.
Matt, the lead singer, also has apparently discovered higher vocal octaves than before, because every now and then he lets out some high pitched singing that was no where in his first two albums.  Overall, his vocals have gotten even better. 
As a whole, you can tell that the band is still learning.  Some bands come out and put all their tricks in their first album, and don't have many new ideas for the followup albums.  Not these guy...they just keep improving.  So, if you liked them before, you will definitely like this one.
They have the same mix of mellow pretty songs (which is weird, considering his voice and the music backing it up don't really seem capable of making pretty music) and rocking songs.  There's some new instruments here and there, like the trombone, and lots of strange lyrics.

To top it all off, the band has confirmed they will be headlining their own shows for a US tour.  They often upstage the other bands that play after them with their crazy energy and great songs, so this is exciting.

The highlight:
I really like the song "It's Just Forever", in part because of guest vocals from The Kills' Alison Mosshart.  This girl has the same gritty-yet-pretty vocals that Matt has, so compliments this song quite well.

However, you should probably watch this music video for the first single "Come a little Closer".
It is pretty ridiculous: