CAKE

I love cake. Cake is sweet and mysterious. When you cut into it you never know what will be revealed. Will it be layered with strawberry jelly sandwiched between moist vanilla cakes? Or perhaps a solid monolithic slab of chocolaty goodiness? Either way the surprise is always wondrous!

The new Cake CD, B-Sides and Rarities is another mysterious delight. It all begins with the base, a cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs. While this is not their best cover song for they did not give it their signature spin, it is still very enjoyable. Lots of horns and well enunciated lyrics -why that should be a luring feature of this song I don't know, but it is dammit! Probably their best cover song however is still I Will Survive from their album Fashion Nugget. The second song on the CD's tracklist is Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town which is likely my favorite track off the CD. It is a bit twangy, but in a good old 1950-60's country way. The lyrics are fun and the ending is an unexpected but pleasant surprise -like finding a cherry drifting inside that chocolate cake!

At the end of the CD are three live tracks. In May I will be seeing Cake live in Calgary and really can't wait. I've wanted to see these guys since I first saw their video on Much (way back when Fashion Nugget came out). They don't seem to tour Canada too often, but these three live tracks are great! John McCrea's vocals are amazing, with the same great clarity and emotion that one gets from the CD's. The band also sounds tight! One of the things I love about Cake is that the lyrics are created to compliment the band's overall sound and not vice-versa like in so many other bands.

I'm not describe anything else off this CD because A) I'm really tired and I should have read something instead of typing on my blog, and B) I think you should just buy the damn CD. It's great and you will definitely enjoy it! However, if you have never listened to a Cake CD before, I would rather recommend either Fashion Nugget, Motorcade of Generosity, or Pressure Chief. Those are definitely their best three albums, but this latest contribution is still worth picking up!

Oh, how could I forget to tell you that the CD's cover is scratch and sniff! When the hell have you heard of someone making a scratch & sniff CD? It's worth it buying the CD based on just this fact alone!