Cage The Elephant – Melophobia (Vinyl LP)

Cage The Elephant – Matt Shultz (vocals), Brad Shultz (guitar), Daniel Tichenor (bass/vocals), Lincoln Parish (guitar) and Jared Champion (drums) – return with their third studio album Melophobia on RCA Records. The 10-song set was recorded in Nashville, TN and reunites the band with producer Jay Joyce who produced the group’s prior two releases.

The new album is the follow up to 2011’s acclaimed sophomore album Thank You Happy Birthday, which debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 chart and has sold over 250,000 copies to date. Rolling Stone, New York Times, LA Times, USA Today, and Entertainment Weekly praised the release as “one of the best rock albums of the year.” The album also spawned the hit single “Shake Me Down” which spent six weeks at #1 at Alternative radio.

Their acclaimed self-titled debut album was released in 2009 and has sold over 550,000 copies to date. The album remained on the Billboard Top 200 chart for an astounding 73 consecutive weeks and produced three top 5 singles at Alternative Radio, including the massive hit “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked.” In additional to numerous sold out headline runs, Cage The Elephant has toured with the Black Keys, Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Muse, Stone Temple Pilots, Foals, Silversun Pickups, Manchester Orchestra, and many more.

Matt Shultz on Melophobia: “When we set out to make this record we had a few different vague ideas for what direction we wanted to move in musically, but as usual the end result turned out nothing like what we had originally envisioned. There was an element of playfulness and swagger absent on our last record that unexpectedly began to surface. At the same time the songs had a more inner-directed and reflective sound. Finally, we started experimenting with combining the two polar elements. Every time we make a record we go to war with ourselves as individuals and as a collective. We try to remain true to our convictions and in the end, we have to let go and let the record speak for its self. Letting go is the easy part, getting to that point is the struggle.”

“This album has tested us as individuals and as a collective. We’re five people fighting for our own ideologies of good music – we clash stylistically and sometimes even personally,” said drummer Jared Champion. “The studio is the place where we push all of those individual creative emotions together and smash them to the dispersion point until they explode like a Timebomb. With the explosion arrives something beautiful and in the end, when you listen back and goose bumps prick your skin like the first few drops of a summer rainfall on searing concrete, you know that you and your band of brothers have created something substantial. Conquering our melophobia is what drives us.”

1.  Spiderhead

2.  Come a Little Closer

3.  Telescope

4.  It’s Just Forever (feat. Alison Mosshart)

5.  Take It or Leave It

6.  Halo

7.  Black Widow

8.  Hypocrite

9.  Teeth

10. Cigarette Daydreams