My boyfriend has schizoaffective but in his mind he doesn't. So that makes it very difficult for him to be adherent to a treatment. He started vraylar in december at 1.5mg only but his psychiatrist and myself think he would benefit an increase of dosage. Instead, he started "forgetting" alot to take his meds, to the point he wad taking 1 dose per week during an entire month. I saw that and told him why and suggest him to follow the treatment for now to fully see what are the effects. He was more consistent (at least I think) during the past month...but then he started smoking cannabis (THC) again, smoking, and taking lots of energy drinks. Today was his birthday. I offered him a gift and he was very happy. I bought a cake and we had a nice moment. Then, he went to his dads after dinner (which is out of town for work) and came back at the end of the evening, in a completely different mood. Almost as if he was a totally different person. His eyes gets bigger, the pupils, and he acts very dramatic and almost theatratical, and gets very expressive, says mean things to me and about everyone being the problem, and talks about wanting to punch people randomly...then laughs, then makes fun of me, argue alone about nothing but saying everything is my fault and that he can't endure me. He often talks to himself when in those kind of states. Like he has delusions and thinks I confront him but I do nothing : I was studying maths for my exams as it is the last week of the semester. Then he yells and gets very angry and irritable and left, and then wrote me he no longer wants to see me and that he would never not respect himself anymore by eating cake he didn't want. 30 min later he just sent me a pic of him nude lol. But earlier today he was happy and I told him not to eat the cake if he didn't want to. And he wanted to see me earlier and yesterday he was hugging me and being affectionnate. I don't know what to do and what not to do. It happened before when he was off meds it was chaotic. The mood swings were very extreme and very short, and sometimes (majority of the time) he would forget about it! Like he broke up with me at night, and was kissing me the next morning like if nothing happened. Then he could be hypomanic doing physics calculs of a fictive project as if it was an emergency and gets very centered on himself and gets irritable if I try to talk to him. He wants me to listen to him, but gets mads and yells and sometimes even hurt me physically by grabbing my wrist hard and sometimes threatened me to hurt me or punch me...
I am thinking of taking contact again with his psychiatrist once my exams are done in 10 days. She is very compassionate and empathetic, and I trust her, and he likes her also, at least more than his previous psychiatrist.
Do you have any suggesting for how to deal with a someone delusional having extreme and short mood swings? Sometimes I get hurt and take things personally and it makes me feel miserable.

Happy birthday to my tween self more than 2 decades ago who wanted nothing to do with life and was ready to end it. We have lived such a fun life little one and I can only imagine the fun that’s left. It’s been very fucking tough at time but nothing we can’t take. Thank you for hanging in there 💕 love you

So my ex and I (23f, 25f) broke up a little over 3 months ago. It was really brutal, I was blindsided, but at the same time I hurt her quite a bit as well. We were really toxic towards the end and I genuinely think this was for the best.
Like an hour and a half after we have the breakup conversation, Im at home trying to process things and she texts me a picture of her mom’s dog wearing a kansas city chiefs shirt and says “I fear you would have left me over this anyways” (Context for anyone who doesn’t care about sports, I just straight up don’t like the Chiefs and they were playing in the super bowl again that weekend). I didn’t respond at all and just felt really hurt, we broke up under strange circumstances and I was left feeling like she just didn’t like me and I was resigned to the fact that she didn’t respect me anymore, so getting a joke text within 2 hours of breaking up hurt a lot tbh. Like what was I supposed to say?
Fast forward two days, I didn’t respond to her dumb joke and she texts me at like midnight saying “Im sorry, I’ll learn forgiveness, you were my best friend and I hope we can be friends again” and then says a bunch more stuff the next morning like “We should talk soon”, “nobody understands me like you, I just want to speak with you about this and nobody else but we can’t and it sucks”. My sister and my friends told me to block her but I held strong for some reason. I just couldn’t let go.
Then a few MORE days later I decided to respond with no words, I send her the laundry/taxes meme from Everything Everywhere All at Once, partly because it was sentimental and we did have a really special relationship at one point, and also because lowkey the last thing I dropped off for her was her W-2 and her laundry. She responds saying we should talk soon, and says all kinds of stuff like “I miss you lots”, “Maybe we just need time to be our own people”, “Im still wearing the ring you gave me” (context: It wasn’t a promise ring or engagement ring or anything, just was one of the first birthday presents I ever got her and was one of the first gifts I ever bought someone where I spent real real money on, so it at least meant SOMETHING to us), and a whole bunch of other sentimental stuff, concluding with “Im here whenever you’re ready to speak.” These messages all really hurt me and multiple ppl told me to block her but once again, I just couldn’t bring myself to.
Now, a few more days go by and she texts me about a performance one of our mutual friends’ invited us to. She asked if I was gonna go and said if I was then she would back out. This just bothered me SO MUCH, not only had I forgotten all about this performance and had zero intention of going given the state I was in, but it was just a question that NEEDED an answer, I couldn’t just leave her on read again, right? I responded and kinda showed too much of my feelings and how hurt I was, and we spoke a bit over text. She admitted she handled our breakup inappropriately and also said that marriage was still a possibility for us (Mind you, in our final argument as a couple she pointed at me and goes “Does this even look like marriage material?” which I still think about to this day). It was….jarring. I pretty much clung on to that hope. Then at the end she completely switched her stance and said SHE needed time and that she would let ME know when she was ready for a conversation, saying she needed two weeks.
Fast forward a few weeks, we had been in contact only to exchange our belongings, but she blocked me after I told her she could leave one of my hats in the mailbox if she didnt want to see me. So I message her dad a week later in order to get my things back and get that all sorted. However, one of my friends informed me that she was speaking to a boy in one of her psych courses who had been hitting on her. This kinda sent me down the rabbit hole and I message her dad again asking for some of my stuff back. Mind you, Im still blocked at this point so if I wanted it back, I had to go through him. The thing she still had of mine was my nice pillow which i had given to her to take to her dorm, and even a few days after the breakup she had said stuff like “Im still sleeping on the pillow you gave me” so at this rate I just wanted it back. Her dad immediately assumed I had blocked her and he tried to speak to me like I was his kid and I told him “your daughter is the one who blocked me” and he got really embarrassed. I get unblocked and get my pillow back bc I dont know how youre still sleeping on it while speaking to the first dude that hits on you (Mind you this girl swore she was a lesbian and was always worried I would cheat with a boy). I get the pillow back, she compliments my hair bc I had gotten it done, and we go on our separate ways.
Now, I messaged her a couple more times because I kept finding stuff of hers at my place. Id dropped some of it off at her dad’s place bc he lives in town. Fast forward to my birthday exactly 2 months after we breakup, she texts me at 9pm saying “Happy birthday” and nothing else. Wtf. I didn’t reply and I actually was super lonely on my bday so she was the last person I wanted to hear from.
I think I made the mistake of trying to bring one of her things to her a week later because I was visiting a friend who lived by her campus. This is where I feel she thinks I might be the one trying to drop breadcrumbs. It was super awkward, i just handed her her stuff and she said something completely inaudible but sounded like “take care” or something along those lines. And NOW is where I make the ultimate mistake of asking why that was weird once she got back into her building. She was basically like “im still healing, don’t message me unless theres stuff of mine thatyou have. I dont want to speak to you for a very long time if not ever”. So in 2 months I go from “im here whenever youre ready” to “dont speak to me ever”.
I told her that I am still healing too and dont even want to have a conversation yet, and I make the mistake of asking why she bothered telling me happy birthday if thats how she feels. The response i got from her was “I did it because it would have felt bad not saying anything, I wont say it again next year”. I got blocked permanently a few messages later.
So basically, just go no contact and stick to it. I should have taken my friends advice and blocked her a long time ago, and because I didnt I got my hopes up and got hurt again. Apologies for the long post, but seriously sometimes people just say things because they are emotional and not because they mean them. I held out for hope for way too long.
Apologies for the long ass post

finished this track, gave it the first title that came to mind, uploaded it, then found out it was BE's birthdasy
https://soundcloud.com/mskvegas/eno

Hey everyone! So my bf and I love going to six flags for his birthday in July. I had my surgery in October 2023. I know being 9 months post op sounds like a long time, but I don’t want to cause any kind of damage when I am really happy with my results. I have been doing yoga since March and it has really helped with my shoulders after surgery and slowly regain my ability to stretch my arms and I have made pretty good progress. Although, I know that my chest has no muscle strength yet and I am slowly working towards that. I don’t raise my arms on rollercoasters anyways I get nervous. But I know some rides at Six Flags Massachusetts can be intense and might hurt my chest if it’s not healed enough. I will be reaching out to my surgeon anyways but I want to ask others opinions who are later in post op and have experienced this!
Sending you all the best <3 jasper

Hi all. I hope it's okay to share this here. I'm new to this whole thing and I just need to let out some thoughts and feelings that have been weighing on me lately. It's been a really difficult year.
Where to start.. Perhaps some context. My partner and I currently live in a small single bedroom studio apartment in the UK. We have just given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy who has just turned one month this previous Sunday.
11 Months ago, in June, my partner and I suffered a late miscarriage of our son at 18 weeks. It was devastating and heartbreaking, and holding him in my arms was a moment that I will never forget and will weigh heavily on my heart for the rest of my life. Carrying his coffin through the crematorium and reading the poem I wrote him is something I never thought in my life I'd ever have to do. Then, two weeks later, I lost my job. It was due to a mistake on my part, one I'll always hold my hands up and admit to, but the timing of it couldn't have been worse. It stung.. it still stings, because the job market hasn't been kind to me since. Every single day I'm out looking for work, doing odd-jobs here and there to get by but I've been unable to find a new consistent job, and so we're having to rely on government benefits to get by financially.
Fast forward to now.. we've been blessed with a gorgeous baby boy. But with blessing comes challenge. My partner is battling PPD, struggling with her self-image, and feeling lost in herself. She can't walk past a mirror without breaking down and the stress of looking after him alone when it's my turn to sleep causes the same reaction. Our baby boy has colic and so, to ensure we're actually resting, we're currently rotating in shifts to look after him. We tried the standard 8 hours each and that didn't work out for us so now we're rotating in 3 hour shifts. For 3 hours I'll take him, then we'll both look after him together for 3 hours before my partner then takes him for 3- and then so on. Admittedly, we've struggled to stick to that routine but it's definitely working better than the one before.
I've been doing my best to hold everything together. Since we brought him home I've taken the lion's share of responsibilities so my partner can rest and recover from childbirth, as well as have the time she needs to push through her PPD. I usually let her sleep over the 3 hour mark by quite a fair bit and in the beginning the baby was glued to me to allow her to recover. I was more than happy for this and I want it clear that I'm not complaining. I made that choice and I am happy with it. What I'm venting about here is a bit more complicated.
I don't... feel anything with him. I don't have the connection with my son that everyone else seems to have. It's like I'm babysitting a stranger's child. Am I not supposed to have this overwhelming feeling of love and joy? My partner and each of our parents all have this connection with him. They have so much love and pride when they see and hold him and I.. don't. What I feel is instead a sense of responsibility, a paternal desire to protect and keep him safe.. but I don't feel anything else. I'm always told that it's because my partner carried him for 9 months and that our parents have had children before themselves so they know what it's like.. but I can't help but feel guilty and cruel because of it.
And ultimately, I think that's what it boils down to. Guilt. It's eating me up inside. I feel guilty for not feeling what everyone else seems to feel, for not being able to provide financially, for not always knowing what my baby needs. I miss our lost baby every day, and it's hard not to see him when I look at our new baby. It'll be a year since we lost him in a few weeks and it's a painful reminder of what we lost. I'm terrified of being the type of Dad my Father was, I'm terrified that as he grows older he'll resent me because I was unable to provide for him the way I should. I just.. I've always dreamed of being an this amazing Father and an amazing future Husband to my partner and with each day I feel like it's a dream I'll never achieve.
I know that it's supposed to get better. Everyone says it and I don't doubt it.. but it's hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel. One thing I'm incredibly grateful for, though, is how supportive my partner and I have been with each other. Every trial and tribulation has only ever made us stronger and I fall more in love with her every day. Seeing her be the Mum I always knew she'd be.. it makes everything just a little bit easier. I've told her all of this and she's told me her own woes, and we're doing everything we can day by day- and it's for that very reason that I want to do right by them both.
I'm sorry if this post seems out of place or self-indulgent. I just needed to let these thoughts out into the world, to lighten the load even just a little bit. Thanks for listening, Dads. And sorry if this isn't the right place for it. I'm still learning the ropes of this whole new Dad thing.

Fucking hell, I swear, every time I think that my schedule is all set some bullshit happens.
Fiancee's car broke last evening. God knows how long the repairs will take and how much it will cost, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to use a bit of my savings 'cause I'm low on cash at the moment. And the car service is rather far from our home, so some time will be inevitably spent on commuting.
My sister's and fiancee's birthdays are right around the corner and I'll have to dig into my saving again 'cause see the above.
I have some work-related studying to do. Fine, I've made a room for it in my schedule, not happy about it but no big deal either. But now I also have to teach my sister a whole different subject (we work at the same place and have same jobs) because she has failed to learn that on her own and, apparently, is now at risk of losing her job. Last Saturday I've been assessing her and her knowledge of even the basics is vague. I can't believe this, she's been tackling this subject for a whole damn year, the fuck did she do all that time?! Or better yet, the fuck did she do for four years in the university? I mean, I know it wasn't her specialization at the uni and her learning process was messy at best (she was supervised by her former boss who is a jerk with unreasonable expectations, her current boss is only marginally better), but shit's as basic as it gets, I shouldn't have spent more that twenty minutes on that!
And to top it all off, everything's blooming and I'm allergic to pollen. I mean, this isn't unexpected, but constant nose and eyes itching sure as shit doesn't improve my mood.

So yeah... this is a post where I review all 5 Cage The Elephant albums. Pretty simple. These are all reviews that I originally wrote on an app/website called "Musicboard" over the past couple weeks, but I've copy-pasted them here for your reading convenience. Hope you enjoy & I hope to to talk about these albums with you!
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Self Titled

Probably their weakest album to date, but still a pretty solid debut overall.
I hate to be so predictable, but the best song here is still “Ain’t No Rest for The Wicked”, and it ain’t even close. It’s extremely fun & catchy, it’s the album’s most sonically distinct piece BY FAR, and it’s storytelling/pacing are both absolutely flawless. A track that absolutely deserves it’s iconic status.
Even though the record’s best isn’t up for debate, there are some other pretty good highlights as well. “In One Ear” is a very solid opener for the project, “Judas” gives us consistently excellent lyricism, and “Tiny Little Robots” has an uncharacteristically super atmospheric bridge which makes it stand out quite a bit. It also transitions super smoothly into the following “Lotus” who’s engaging pacing, beautiful chorus, & satisfying climax make it another easy favourite for me.
But then beyond the lovably visceral energy of it’s closer, “Free Love”, Cage The Elephant’s self-titled debut really doesn’t give me a whole lot more to talk about. It’s got consistently great musicianship, a decent number of highlights, and some bizarrely excellent song transitions, but the album has a really bad case of being FAR too samey. Everything outside of the tracks I’ve already mentioned blend together in my mind almost completely. None of them are bad, but none of them are particularly memorable either.
This album is still pretty good at the end of the day, some solid garage rock fun, but Cage’s later projects would all feel a whole lot more distinct & purposeful.
Best Songs: Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked, Lotus, & Free Love.
Weakest Songs: Drones in the Valley, Soil to the Sun, & Back Stabbin' Betty.
This album gets a strong 7/10 from me.
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Thank You, Happy Birthday

It may be a little all over the place, but it’s still a pretty big improvement over their debut.
For one, the sound of this album is FAR more lush & vibrant than that of their debut. The guitars here are especially brimming with so much more life & colour than they were on their self-titled record. Another big improvement is that record is how much more variety this album has. It’s an incredibly stylistically varied project, and while that does lead to it feeling a little messy every so often, it’s all still held together very well by excellent & super aesthetically consistent production.
The album starts out quite strong with “Always Something”. The ominous guitars, raw vocals, & slight electronic elements all combine to make for a rather gripping opener. Other highlights include “Shake Me Down” which I love for it’s percussive acoustic guitars & personal childhood nostalgia, “Aberdeen” which I love for it’s super catchy melodies & powerfully mixed guitars, as well as “Right Before My Eyes” which has a similarly excellent sound & a surprisingly moving chorus.
This record also contains a lot of the most loudly abrasive material that Cage have ever released... to very mixed results. You have tracks like “Sell Yourself” & “Doctor Help Me” which are just sorta forgettable, a song like “Indy Kidz” which has a fantastic instrumental alongside an unfortunately & obnoxiously tryhard vocal performance, but then you have “Sabertooth Tiger” which is actually one of my TOP favourites here. The chaotic viscerality of this one feels so much more natural than those other tracks, as well as SO MUCH more invigorating. I really wasn't expecting to love it so much upon revisiting it today, but it very much surprised me.
On the other side of the coin, we also have a couple distinctly lowkey moments that I’d like to talk about. “Rubber Ball” is a very pleasant track with a slightly jaunty charm to it, but even more pleasant than that is “Flow”. My favourite song on the whole album. It’s not a particularly sad song, nor is it like STUNNINGLY beautiful, and yet… I often find myself close to tears when listening to it. If I had to put the feeling into words, I’d say that the atmosphere of this song is so perfectly tender & existentially content that it’s… genuinely overwhelming. I yearn to forever exist within the powerful sense of peace that this song provides, but I can only do so for 3 minutes at a time & that makes me wanna cry.
Overall, “Thank You Happy Birthday” is just a WAY more consistently enjoyable project than their debut. It has cleaner production, a far more memorable aesthetic, a greater sense of sonic exploration, better vocals for the most part, MUCH higher highs, and far fewer lows as well. Other than those “forgettably abrasive” songs which I talked about 2 paragraphs ago, the only significant lowlight for me would be the underwhelming closer that is “Carry Me In”. The record honestly should’ve just ended with “Flow” cuz these final 2 tracks which come right after just aren’t very interesting.
But yeah, other than having a significantly weaker closer, this album is an improvement over their first in every single way.
Best Songs: Flow, Sabertooth Tiger, & Aberdeen
Weakest Songs: Doctor Help Me, Carry Me In, & Sell Yourself.
This album gets a light to decent 8/10 from me.
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Melophobia

Don’t you love it when an overall “pretty good” discography randomly contains one genuine masterpiece?
I absolutely ADORE this record, and I don’t even consider Cage The Elephant to be one of my all time favourite bands. They probably wouldn’t make my Top 25, but “Melophobia” specifically is easily one of the best albums I’ve ever heard, and (now that I no longer listen to Arcade Fire) my personal favourite release of 2013. At the very least, it’s a stiff competition between this & Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories”. I’ve gotta go track by track with this one in order to effectively convey my love for it so buckle in!
“Spiderhead” is a genuinely perfect opener for the record. It conveys to us ALL of the project’s best qualities while never feeling like it’s spoiled the album for you. The best is still very much yet to come. We’ve got scuzzy guitars that feel both authentically raw & immaculately produced, super catchy melodies delivered through a very precise yet slightly wild vocal performance, and also this really cool “glitched tempo change” at the end which gives this specific song a very unique flare.
“Come A Little Closer” is probably the most popular song here, and while it’s not my personal #1, it is still absolutely deserving of that status. The verses ease us in with a super slick bassline, some incredibly atmospheric guitars/synths, as well as a grippingly moody vocal performance. All of which come to a head on the track's spectacularly explosive choruses which still manage to fit the song’s moody tone flawlessly. The bridge here is also excellent with an extremely effective build to the song’s final & most explosive chorus. LOVE this track. Iconic shit.
“Telescope” is even more iconic though. It’s the best thing that Matt Schultz has ever written & it’s not even a contest honestly. We open with some tenderly playful synths which eventually give way to an equally playful yet distinctly melancholic vocal performance & lyrical story. This leads to the song’s incredible chorus which only becomes more emotionally powerful each & every time it’s repeated, but it’s the bridge here that really elevates the track into something truly spectacular. It’s so instrumentally frantic & vocally raw while still miraculously fitting into the song’s overall tenderly melancholic atmosphere. Such an evocative masterpiece. Unquestionably one of my favourite songs of all time.
“It’s Just Forever” is frequently maligned as the album’s one & only dud, but other than some admittedly awkward tonal whiplash between it & the last song, I still think it’s a fantastic addition to the record. We’ve got some wonderfully visceral guitars, a delightfully wild guest vocal performance courtesy of Alison Mosshart, and an outro that predicted the “Untitled Goose Game” OST six years in advance. What’s not to love?
“Take It Or Leave It” has a super chillaxed atmosphere all throughout, but never in a way that becomes boring. The chorus is super catchy, I enjoy the slight country-isms of the track, and the guitars sound amazing… but that’s definitely starting to become a moot point in this review. SUCH a vibe of a song.
“Halo” is probably the least uniquely remarkable song here. I don’t really have anything specific to say about it, but don’t think for a second that I mean to imply it’s even remotely weak. It’s still a banger.
“Black Widow” is an absolute BLAST of a song. The gritty rock’n’roll instrumentation along with those seductive vocals are obviously fantastic, but the star of the show here is undoubtedly the brass elements. The blaring horns on this track, whichever ones they are exactly, are sheer musical euphoria. That brief moment during the bridge where they completely overpower the rest of the mix is especially stunning. This is another one of those songs that I often hear people proclaiming as one of the album’s worst, but I think those people are weak. This song is nothing short of SPECTACULAR. Such a wonderful rush of visceral energy.
“Hypocrite” serves as a very nice change of pace for the record. The incredibly unique drum rhythms & overall slow pacing really make it stand out here. We’ve got a decently moving chorus, some nice brass elements yet again, and while said brass elements aren’t nearly as impressive as last time, these horns still fill out the mix very nicely & aid the song in having an even more unique energy than the aforementioned odd drumming was already giving it.
“Teeth” is the most perfectly unhinged thing that Cage The Elephant has ever released. In my review for their previous album, I talked about how certain tracks there often struggled to nail the balance of “controlled chaos”. Songs from that record which attempted this mostly just felt messy instead of compellingly scatterbrained. “Teeth”, on the other hand, achieves that balance effortlessly. Everything about this track is marvelous madness. The frantically abrasive guitars, evocatively strange lyrics, rivetingly unrefined vocals, and OH MY WORD that outro. After being a badass rock song for about 3 minutes, this shit randomly decides to basically become spoken word jazz at the end, and it works miraculously well. The lethargic bassline, the dour brass elements, the lyrics rich with meaning that’s hard to fully grasp. The whole thing is genuinely quite unnerving, but in a way that’s always still very enjoyable to listen to.
“Cigarette Daydreams” is a very interesting closer for this album. The acoustics & pianos are both incredibly pretty, the vocals & melodies are both really moving, and the whole experience is extremely immersive with it’s atmosphere. It’s a truly beautiful song on it’s own as well as an extremely anticlimactic ending for the record. But to explain why I actually mean that as a positive, I need to talk about “Teeth” again. Keep in mind that everything I’m about to say here has absolutely NOTHING to do with the lyrics of these songs. It’s simply my mind creating a story by interpreting the emotional atmospheres of both tracks.
“Teeth” is like witnessing or being involved in some sort of traumatic event. It’s a chaotic mess that leaves you deeply unsettled. Horrified even. Like being the bystander to a uniquely bad car crash. The kind where gorey death is very clearly visible. “Cigarette Daydreams” contrasts “Teeth” by being easily the most tender & simplistic song on the album. It’s very comforting with it’s musicality, but what I love here is that it’s not quite “cathartic”. It’s not a release of tension or an eradication of negative emotion. It’s like being frozen with shock after witnessing this crash before someone else eventually arrives to comfort you. This comfort feels nice & brings you back to your senses, but you’re still not ok. You still witnessed something horrible & a quick bit of comfort isn’t going to immediately fix that.
That’s the story I read from the tonal dichotomy between these 2 songs. A story of horror followed by incomplete comfort. It’s not a satisfying ending for me, but it’s such a specific & evocative kind of dissatisfaction that I can’t help but be fascinated by it. A super cathartic track full of positive emotion & grandiose beauty wouldn’t have worked here at all. Something quietly comforting that’s lacking in huge catharsis is the only way this could have gone. It’s the only ending that makes sense directly after a track as wild a “Teeth”. Again, NONE of this has anything to do with the lyrics. Just sheer emotion.
In conclusion though, I really fucking love “Melophobia”. It’s got perfect pacing, perfect production, tons of variety, so many excellent highlights, and one of the most memorable album endings I’ve ever experienced. The band’s whole discography is undoubtedly quite good, but this record is still LEAGUES above anything else that came before it, and so far, anything that has come after. Y’all better listen to it if you haven’t already.
Best Songs: Telescope, Black Widow, & Come A Little Closer.
Weakest Songs: haha no.
10/10. Masterpiece.
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Tell Me I'm Pretty

It’s a HUGE downgrade from the last album, but still a decent enough listen.
It’s a stiff competition between this & their self-titled when we’re deciding which Cage The Elephant album is the weakest. They both exist on pretty much equal levels of “unremarkably decent”, but I think I’d probably give “Tell Me I’m Pretty” an ever so slight edge over their debut. Even though I’m ultimately gonna give them the same rating, I think this record has a few more significantly notable qualities.
“Cry Baby” is a very solid opener & “Mess Around” is a delightfully nostalgic single in spite of literally just being a Black Keys song, but it’s only on tracks 4-7 where this album really hits it’s stride. “Too Late To Say Goodbye” is very methodically emotive, “Cold Cold Cold” has some super fun percussion & an engagingly dazed sense of atmosphere, and “How Are You True” is one of the prettiest songs in the band’s whole catalog. The choppy vocal effects are extremely immersive, and the lowkey energy of it all is wonderfully hypnotic.
It also transitions very naturally out of the song right before it. That song being “Trouble”. The strongest piece of this album by a pretty wide margin. The backing vocals are beautiful, the chorus is really impactful, the acoustic elements are particularly well utilized, and the whole thing truly feels “Melophobia quality” while still being sonically distinct from that project. After this 4-7 stretch however, the album’s final 3 tracks don’t give me a whole lot to talk about.
I enjoy the spaghetti western vibes of “That’s Right” decently enough, but “Punchin’s Bag” is one of the most forgettable songs that CTE have ever made, and even though it’s a decently fun track on it’s own, “Portuguese Knife Fight” has almost no real impact as a CLOSER. Which is particularly disappointing coming right off the heels of a record with one of the most impactful endings I’ve ever heard.
So yeah… “Tell Me I’m Pretty” definitely isn’t bad, but it definitely ain’t special either. It’s unenergetic in a way that mostly feels ill fitting of the band, Dan Auerbach’s production is solid but also extremely homogeneous, and lots of Matt’s vocals here feel way more “performative” than they do natural and/or “from the heart”. I do still enjoy this record for it’s excellent musicianship, generally solid song writing, and handful of wonderful highlights, but something definitely feels a little off about it all.
They just weren’t in peak form here. Which, again, is not a very pretty look right up against one of the most PEAK albums of the 2010’s.
Best Songs: Trouble, Cold Cold Cold, & How Are You True.
Weakest Songs: Punchin’ Bag, Sweetie Little Jean, & Portuguese Knife Fight.
This album gets a strong 7/10 to me.
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Social Cues

Not without it’s problems, but undoubtedly some of their strongest material to date.
This is pretty easily their 2nd best album if you ask me. It’s nowhere NEAR as good as 2013’s “Melophobia”, but it’s not like I ever expected them to reach those heights again. Cage The Elephant are an overall “pretty good” band with one exceptional masterpiece that came out of nowhere. But in terms of the rest of their “pretty good” discography, this is a very enjoyable album… even if it is VERY front loaded. Tracks 1-7 are all fantastic with only one exception, but then tracks 8-13 are all super forgettable outside of a couple key exceptions.
Let’s talk about that excellent first half though. “Broken Boy” is an immediately gripping BANGER of an opener with viscerally crisp production, The Title Track has a wonderfully psychedelic soundscape to it & one of the band’s catchiest choruses ever, and “Night Running” is a song that’s always gotten way too much hate in my opinion. I can KINDA understand the aversion to how sheerly radio friendly it is, but the vibes are again delightfully psychedelic, the Beck feature suits the track flawlessly, and there’s this extremely appealing sense of… idk “fuzziness” to the production on the chorus. Super sonically satisfying stuff.
Other great moments from this first half include “Ready to Let Go’ which was a perfect lead single for the record, as well as “Skin And Bones” which has a really moving chorus & some beautifully implemented strings, but easily the HARDEST banger of the whole project comes to us in the direct middle. “House of Glass”. This is one of the spectacularly wild things they’ve ever put out & it’s an absolute BLAST to listen to. The sly vocals, viciously vigorous guitars, and perfectly chaotic production all come together to create one of their best songs to date. LOVE IT.
Now for that relatively lackluster 2nd half. “The War Is Over” actually grew on me quite a bit this time around which I wasn’t expecting, but we still have songs like “Dance Dance” which feel distinctly lacking in creativity, “Tokyo Smoke” which frankly just feels kinda aimless to me, as well as “What I’m Becoming” which, in an attempt to sound soft & lowkey, just comes across as rather drab. These songs are all still “decent” at the end of the day, but they absolutely do not live up to the consistently high quality of that first half. Where this 2nd half DOES shine however are in it’s softer moment’s that aren’t “What I’m Becoming”.
“Love’s the Only Way” is SUCH a lovely track. The light guitars, the ethereal string sections, the tender vocal performance, the vividly “late night” atmosphere of it all! It’s easily one of the most beautiful glimpses into their softer side that the band have ever given us, but even more beautiful than that is the album’s closer & best song BY FAR, “Goodbye”. The lyrics are absolutely heartbreaking, the pianos are extremely moving in spite of being so very simple, and the bridge here is beyond fascinating to me.
There’s this part of it’s instrumental that’s either a muted piano or the pitched down plucks of an orchestral stringed instrument. Whatever the hell it is, it gives me chills damn near every time I hear it. There aren’t even lyrics during this part, but it still manages to be one of the most evocative depictions of sadness that I’ve ever borne witness to. Undeniable proof that sound alone can often speak SO MUCH louder than words. This has been my go to “depression song” for YEARS now & I don’t see that changing any time soon.
So that’s “Social Cues”! It’s definitely got some issues, but I still like it quite a bit. It’s got a really fun new sound for the band, a decent amount of variety, consistently excellent lyrics that are largely about Matt’s, at the time, recent divorce, and some of the highest highs in their entire discography. It’s undoubtedly frontloaded, but still a very satisfying album experience overall. I mean it’s kind of impossible NOT to be satisfied with a closer this stellar.
Best Songs: Goodbye, House of Glass, & Social Cues.
Weakest Songs: What I’m Becoming, Black Madonna, & Tokyo Smoke.
This album gets a decent 8/10 from me.
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Well that's the post! Hope you enjoyed reading it & I'd love to discuss any & all of my takes in the comments!

I'm starting to realize the past week that there's something that gotten a bit out of control. I don't really wanna say what it is yet, cause it's nothing bad, in fact if anything for many people it is only beneficial to their health. So I'm a bit hesitant to compare it to an addiction, as that feels a bit insulting to people who are addicted to stuff that destroys them.
But yeah for the past month I've started doing this thing a bit much. I barely do any of the other things I used to enjoy doing anymore, cause I'd rather just do this instead. I've fallen so behind on a bunch of things, like birthday gifts to family or tasks that I do really need to get done some time. I did my taxes a while ago, started doing them about 30 minutes before I absolutely had to send them in so I may have fucked up a few numbers. But most importantly, I've been sleeping about 3-4 hours every night for a month or so, too busy enjoying myself.
It's currently 3:30am for example, I gotta get up at 7:30am. But I'm having so much fun right now and feeling so happy, and I'm not tired at all yet. I'm just thinking I've only slept 4 hours for many days now and I feel fine, so I can do it again tonight. The thought of having to quit and go to sleep feels so sad to me. My girlfriend has long gone to sleep, she's always asleep by the time I go to bed and I am so scared of waking her up cause I don't want her to check the time.
Last week I went to sleep at 4am actually cause I did not have to wake up early the next day anyway. Then I woke up at 7am from having to pee, and the idea that I'd have hours of free time before work if I didn't go back to sleep just felt too good.
And I really don't want to be posting this cause I know what the responses will be, they'll tell me to stop it and get enough sleep. I really don't wanna hear that, and I don't know if I'll actually manage to follow any advice. I'm just feeling better than ever, it's so strange that that would be a bad thing. And I'm not really hurting anyone, and I don't seem to be hurting myself as far as I can tell, I'm mostly functioning. I'm doing my job perfectly fine and everything that's absolutely necessary, just everything that is somewhat optional is suffering.
Anyway I'll just mention what I'm actually doing all this time, it's really just listening to music. It's as simple as that, something I've really enjoyed all my life, but something has changed. I was on meds that greatly affect dopamine for about 6 years. I quit taken them, with approval and over time, about 3 months ago. And so many things felt better within weeks, not just music but being social, feeling emotions, playing with my cats, going outside. Nothing out of the ordinary really, I was behaving pretty normal and just finally enjoying life. But over time I slowly got more and more into music. It used to be just on fridays and saturdays that I'd stay up late, but it was so much fun that I quickly started doing that on workdays as well. Then I'd come up with excuses, can't go to sleep yet cause I still really gotta do dishes, at 3am...might as well have some music on while I do that. These days there are no more excuses, I just do it until I feel too ashamed at how late it is. And then I still feel terrible sad when I take off my headphones.
Well, I'm gonna get my 4 hours of sleep now. Too scared of replies confirming that I need to stop this right now anyway.