Cage the Elephant’s ‘Social Cues’ Keenly Grapples with Life’s Exhaustible Pleasures

At first glance, Cage the Elephant seems like just another moderately popular indie band with a catchy name, the kind that sits on the back burner of our collective memory until they release new material to remind us that they exist. But on their latest album, “Social Cues,” the band transcends a mere reassertion of their existence. Although they invoke the invariant archetypes of their past albums, Cage the Elephant isn’t recycling old work mindlessly. On “Social Cues,” the band successfully combines their signature sound with a insightful and vulnerable examination of how exhaustion – with relationships, with careers, with oneself – inevitably manifests and piles up.

Midlife crises deserve their own soundtrack, and Cage the Elephant rightfully rises to the occasion to prove it on their fifth album. The opening track, “Broken Boy,” sets a mood of dissatisfaction for the entire record. The song’s distorted introduction quickly segues into an '80s-style chorus and verse over a driving tempo and punchy chords that are reminiscent of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding.” Frontman Matt Shultz asks rhetorical questions that foreshadow the cloud of dissatisfaction hovering over the rest of the album. He laments, “Tell me why I’m forced to live in this skin," inviting the listener to wonder what’s so bad about the skin he’s in.

Yet we don’t have to wonder for long. The titular “Social Cues” portrays fame as an exhaustible pleasure, one that Shultz desires to escape from, but cannot. It focuses on the tension between the perceived allure and the actualized pain of fame when it becomes reality. Lines like “Hide me in the back room / tell me when it's over / Don't know if I can play this part much longer” and “People always say, man, at least you’re on the radio” embody the dissonance between the two sides of fame – being famous and desiring fame. Finding fame exhausting isn’t a particularly innovative theme, but the difference with “Social Cues” is that the irritation toward fame is consistent throughout the entire album, showing up again in songs like “Black Madonna” and “Skin and Bones,” which allows for Shultz’s message to be digested more wholeheartedly.

On “Social Cues,” Cage the Elephant documents the impermanence of relationships. Complementary songs “Goodbye” and “Ready To Let Go” appear to document Shultz’s recent divorce, each describing how relationships once regarded as impenetrable are not immune to the wear of everyday life. “Ready to Let Go” aches for separation, and its cocky guitar riffs convey a confident attitude toward separation and its motives. In direct contrast, “Goodbye” starts with soft, vulnerable piano chords, channeling the somber paradox of separation: feeling visceral, residual pain towards divorce despite its necessity. Lyrics like, “Held on too tight / you know I tried / but in the end it left me paralyzed,” are a testament to how the effects of holding on may be worse than letting go, but letting go is still perceived as a last resort. Portrayed through these two songs, the duality of separation makes frustration with exhaustible pleasures accessible to those who may not relate to the tedium of fame.

Amidst bemoaning these exhaustible pleasures, there are a few moments of mindful reprieve. “Love’s the Only Way” is a symphonic masterpiece that is quite distinct from the bass-and-percussion heavy songs on the rest of the album. It’s also a demonstration of Shultz’s vocal range, showcasing his ability to be ethereal and not just gritty or nasal. It searches beyond this exhaustion described in the other songs, toying with the idea that there is perhaps, somewhere, inexhaustible love. This optimism, a smart addition to the album, offers the hope that in a world of diminishing pleasures, there are flickers of fulfillment.

As an album, “Social Cues” takes on the feat of describing both the tiresome anguish of fame alongside failed relationships, albeit with intermittent bouts of hope. The combination of the band’s signature punchy instrumentals with despondently introspective lyrics make “Social Cues” a genuine but not hopeless lament, rather than a subtle flex of fame – a refreshingly honest perspective in an age that glorifies the presentation of personal success above all else.