Music review: Cage the Elephant
O2 ABC, Glasgow **
Apart from the jack-knifing exertions of singer Matthew Shultz – which are, almost as a matter of course, cribbed from the Mick Jagger workout video unspooling inside the heads of most white rock front-men, even to this day – these American alt-rock magpies have no discernible focal point, visually or musically. They’re just another group of unreasonably amplified men, chugging through the motions with no original thoughts of their own.
Shultz’s backing musicians – they never convince as a band in any unified, organic sense – are like bollards, stoically plying their trade with all the frenzied dedication of someone holding a “Golf Sale” sign.
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Hide AdIf Cage the Elephant marketed themselves as cheeky parodists of practically every major American alt-rock detour of the last 25 years, then perhaps they’d be applauded for their uncanny accuracy: the entertaining musical equivalent of Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan trading Michael Caine impressions. But no, we’re supposed to take them seriously as a creative voice in their own right. How will that ever be possible when all they provide are echoes?
PAUL WHITELAW