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**Social Cues - Cage The Elephant**
★★★★☆

There's something beautifully tragic about watching a band pour their collective heartbreak into the studio mixing desk, and Cage The Elephant's fifth studio album stands as a monument to the kind of creative catharsis that only comes from genuine emotional wreckage. Released in April 2019, *Social Cues* emerged from the ashes of frontman Matt Shultz's divorce proceedings, transforming personal devastation into the Kentucky quintet's most cohesive and emotionally resonant work to date.

The album's genesis reads like a rock'n'roll cliché made flesh – Shultz holed up in his newly empty Nashville home, channeling his marital breakdown into a collection of songs that would eventually become the backbone of *Social Cues*. But rather than wallowing in self-pity, the band, working once again with producer John Hill, crafted something that feels both intimate and expansive, a sonic therapy session that manages to be universally relatable while remaining deeply personal.

Musically, *Social Cues* finds Cage The Elephant at their most stylistically adventurous, weaving together strands of alternative rock, indie pop, and psychedelic flourishes into a tapestry that feels both familiar and refreshingly unpredictable. The album opens with "Broken Boy," a shimmering piece of melancholic pop that immediately establishes the record's emotional terrain. Shultz's vocals float over a bed of jangly guitars and subtle electronic textures, setting the stage for an album that's as much about sonic exploration as it is about emotional excavation.

The standout track "Ready to Let Go" serves as the album's emotional centrepiece, a soaring anthem about acceptance and moving forward that showcases the band's ability to transform pain into something genuinely uplifting. The song's chorus is pure catharsis, with Shultz's falsetto riding waves of reverb-drenched guitars and Brad Shultz's inventive lead work. It's the kind of song that feels tailor-made for festival sing-alongs, yet never loses its emotional authenticity.

Equally compelling is "House of Glass," a haunting meditation on vulnerability that finds the band exploring more experimental territory. The track's hypnotic rhythm section, anchored by Daniel Tichenor's melodic bass lines and Jared Champion's precise drumming, creates a foundation for one of Matt Shultz's most introspective vocal performances. The song's bridge, featuring ethereal harmonies and a guitar solo that sounds like it's transmitted from another dimension, ranks among the band's finest moments.

"Social Cues," the album's title track, delivers a more traditional Cage The Elephant experience, with its driving rhythm and anthemic chorus recalling the band's earlier, more garage-rock-oriented material. Yet even here, there's a newfound maturity in the songwriting, a sense that the band has learned to channel their energy more purposefully.

The album's production deserves particular praise, with Hill managing to capture both the raw emotion of the performances and the subtle details that make repeated listening rewarding. The soundscape feels lived-in and organic, avoiding the over-polished sheen that can sometimes plague modern rock records. Nick Bockrath's guitar work, in particular, benefits from this approach, with his contributions feeling like natural extensions of the songs rather than flashy additions.

*Social Cues* also benefits from its pacing, with quieter moments like "Love's the Only Way" providing breathing room between the more intense tracks. The album's 45-minute runtime feels perfectly calibrated, long enough to fully develop its themes without overstaying its welcome.

In the four years since its release, *Social Cues* has solidified Cage The Elephant's reputation as one of America's most consistently engaging rock bands. The album's commercial success – it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 – proved that there's still an appetite for guitar-driven music that doesn't sacrifice emotional depth for radio-friendly hooks. More importantly, it demonstrated the band's evolution from promising garage rockers to mature songwriters capable of transforming personal crisis into universal art.

*Social Cues* stands as Cage The Elephant's most complete statement, a album that manages to be both their most personal and their most accessible. It's a record about endings and beginnings, about the messy process of putting yourself back together, and about finding hope in the wreckage. In short, it