Cage The Elephant have announced details of a new album called ‘Neon Pill’. Check out the latest single ‘Out Loud’ below.
- READ MORE: Cage The Elephant – ‘Social Cues’ review
Announced today (February 29), the LP marks their first full-length album in five years – following on from 2019’s Grammy-winning ‘Social Cues’– and is set for release on May 17. Pre-order it here.
For their sixth album, the Kentucky six-piece look to forge new musical ground, while still retaining their signature cathartic sound throughout. As well as announcing the project, Cage The Elephant have also shared the latest taster of the album in the form of the new single ‘Out Loud’.
The second to be taken from the album following the title track, ‘Out Loud’ is described as the “emotional centrepiece” of the album, and sees the band take a stripped-back, emotional approach.
Centred around a stark piano, frontman Matthew Shultz sings “Man I really messed up now/ Too afraid to say it out loud/ I can barely breath, who’m I trying to be/ I’m still trying to figure it out”.
“‘Out Loud’ is very connected to my father. My dad’s the reason we discovered music in the first place. When he died, ‘Out Loud’ just poured out of me. My efforts towards the song were deeply rooted in paying honour to him, and I knew it meant a lot to Brad too,” he said of the inspiration for the song.
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“That, also in connection with the difficulties that I was dealing with at that time. It was almost a subconscious apology of sorts before I was fully capable of grasping the gravity of it all. Subconsciously working through it while channelling all of the adversity my family faced growing up coming full circle into my adult life in this one song.” Check it out above.
Discussing the album as a whole, the singer also reflected on the mindset which the members were in while writing the new material, and summarised that it represents Cage The Elephant honing in on their own sound more than ever before.
“To me, ‘Neon Pill’ is the first record where we were consistently uninfluenced, and I mean that in a positive way,” he explained.
“Everything is undoubtedly expressed through having settled into finding our own voice. We’ve always drawn inspiration from artists we love, and at times we’ve even emulated some of them to a certain degree. With this album, having gone through so much, life had almost forced us into becoming more and more comfortable with ourselves. We weren’t reaching for much outside of the pure experience of self-expression, and simultaneously not necessarily settling either. We just found a uniqueness in simply existing.”
The announcement comes ahead of the band set to kick off a lengthy North American tour later this summer, which will open with a slot in Salt Lake City on June 20 and see them play 45 shows across the country. Visit here for remaining tickets.
In other Cage The Elephant news, frontman Matt Shultz recently opened up about the “mental health crisis” he faced that led to his arrest in 2023. The update after he was apprehended for illegal possession of two loaded guns last year, the day after an employee at the Bowery Hotel in Lower Manhattan allegedly saw him carrying a handgun into the ground floor public toilets.
He later pleaded guilty to three charges of attempted criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon and walked away with a no-jail plea deal.
“It’s a miracle that I’m here today,” he said online. “I was arrested last year, and it undoubtedly saved my life. After my arrest, I went to the hospital for two months followed by months of outpatient treatment. I can finally explain what happened.”