Rock band Cage the Elephant emerge from loss and hospitalization with new album ‘Neon Pill’

By MARK KENNEDY
AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — To say Cage the Elephant’s latest album had a turbulent birth would be an understatement. The band dealt with the deaths of loved ones, the pandemic and their lead singer’s arrest and hospitalization. Matt Shultz was arrested for criminal possession of firearms and learned he’d been having drug-induced psychosis. Not just that, but his father died. Shultz and his brother and the rest of the band turned all that into “Neon Pill,” a 12-track kaleidoscope of rock, from the strutting glam of “Ball and Chain” to the piano ballad of “Out Loud” and the airy alt-rock of “Float Into the Sky.”