Cake: Showroom of Compassion

Cake's Showroom of Compassion is, somehow (and perhaps unbelievably) a complete package. On a first pass, it might seem merely shallow and laconic, but by the time you get halfway through, around "Sick of You" or "Easy to Crash," you begin to sense how many levels the band is actually working on. Then the album becomes a grower.

For a start, Cake opens the album by exploring their style. Positive or negative, no reviewer could deny the fact that the band has a distinct sound. On "Federal Funding," the elements drop into place one by one. At a rocking pace, John McCrea sings corporate buzzwords in an uninterested tone, while a sharp guitar lopes along in the background. The horns noddle around. Then at three minutes there's this moment of release where the band explodes out into a jammy outro with a cry of "Go!" It's a rousing start. Even in the nondescript early tracks, like the slinky "Long Time," the band has ideas about its songcraft. The bass is slinky, and a subtle keyboard, which gets its best moments later, whirs underneath. I listen to the album and I hear the band pulling back the curtain slowly, track by track. Take the lyrics of "Long Time," which are loaded with nostalgic references ("It's been a long time since you gave my butterflies / It's been a long time since I saw it burning in your eyes") and neutral ones ("It's been a long time since you wore your pillbox hat / It's been a long time since we drove your Pontiac.") McCrae deserves a lot of credit both for his delivery and (if he's responsible) the lyrics themselves. They say a lot without saying it too obviously. They're guarded. That's the point. Like I said, it might be a bit confusing, but it makes sense in light of what comes later.

The album is largely concerned with the passage of time, with its usage and movement. "Mustache Man (Wasted)" features awesomely impatient breathless motormouth lyrics, and an epiphany of a chorus: "I have wasted / SO much time..." McCrae sings those verses like he can't quite cope with everything that's coming to mind, and the chorus like he's suddenly realized there's no point. There's also a Frank Sinatra cover, "What's Now Is Now." In the original, Frank sang against a swell of strings, declaring forgiveness boldly and ostentatiously. Cake, true to form, is a bit more reserved. The guitars cue up the song like frantic pacing. The vocals come in like "Okay, this is really hard for me to say, but here I go." Harmony vocals in the chorus (I'm not sure if it's double-tracked or what, I think it's self-backed though) choke McCrea's voice up and seems to practically strangle him with his own words, especially his delivery of the title line. Gaudio's words and Cake's instruments sound like gorgeous match. There's such complicated emotion being wrung out of it, but it's all under the surface. "Got To Move" manages to be both critical and sympathetic -- or at least lending the appearance of sympathy. This is, after all, the showroom of compassion. All throughout the album, representations of emotion are called into question: is it real or just a display? Do you mean what you say or is it just pretty words?

The album breaks open in the wordless "Teenage Pregnancy," where the band gets a lot of mileage from its instruments. Beethovenlike pianos give way to spaghetti western horns and plastic, midi keyboards, blending warm and open with cold and difficult and building higher in intensity with dark, growling guitars.

Probably the best track on the album is "Sick of You," where it all comes tumbling out. After half an album of dancing around the idea of emotional honesty, the opening lyrics say it all: "I'm so sick of you, so sick of me, I don't want to be with you... I wanna fly away." This cathartic declaration is set against a cocky rock swagger reminiscent of 70's Stones. It revels in the ability to just fucking air one's grievances. "Easy to Crash" makes for the best one-two punch after this, capturing all the boredom and frustration with the modern world we've all probably considered, and the temptation to just defy the chains of society by doing something reckless. It's pretty clear to see when he observes and sings, "It would be easy, so easy to crash." This is a great song, the way the verses are written underscore how boring the world can be, and the chorus beckons you on. They really hit it as much as they do anywhere else on the album.

With those two tracks as the apex, the album takes a good while to circle the tarmac. Havign gotten a lot off its chest, the band is free to be open without being brutal. "Bound Away" bears out my theory that, whether it's Cake, Lissie, Jack White, Hollerado or Neil Young, the best country songs are often by artists that aren't country artists. "The Winter" is probably the most beautiful song on the album, with terrifically sentimental (yet non-sappy) lyrics, a quivering vocal delivery that echoes as though sung from a foot away from the mic, and a keyboard/horn arrangement as delicate as anything heard on this record. The piano keys sound like falling snowflakes (okay, those don't have a sound, but that's a metaphor.) It just sounds a bit more emotionally invested than other tracks.

It closes out with "Italian Guy," a bit of whimsy that I wasn't sure how to take. At first I thought, "How dumb not to end with 'The Winter,'" but I think there's a logic here. We started on the outside, dove as deep as we could, and now make our way back out again. We've seen the inside of McCrea's vocalist persona, but now he turns it on another subject. "He's making a point and it's very important indeed." Neither we nor McCrea know what the Italian guy is thinking about, but like watching people in real life, you try to figure it out based on the clues they provide. The album is back to avoiding grand statements, instead making small observations and letting them speak for themselves, because there's no firm judgment you could make. We never really do know about others. The horns that fade the album out sound both like an end and a beginning.

"Showroom of Compassion" isn't just a random collection of words slapped together as a title. It sounds to me like a good indication that the band knows what they've got on their hands here. In its music and lyrics, it deals with themes of honesty and feeling, and wondering whether there's anything behind the curtain, or if it's all for show. Maybe your natural inclination is that better music is expressive, but I've often thought there's as much expression in withholding as there is in, y'know, actually expressing. You seem too hard to seem sincere and it sounds fake. You do a good job sounding reserved and you become a mystery. The album does a great job playing hide and seek with feelings and meanings. Say it, but don't be so obvious about it. The music does a perfectly fine job speaking for itself. And of course, the band provides that music with lyrics that evoke those feelings with or without direct meanings, like a great modernist work. The meaning's there for those who seek it. I praise the album because the songs are deeper than they seem, and catchy as hell.

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