Music Review: Cake ends 7-year hiatus with strong disc

Cake, "Showroom of Compassion" (Upbeat Records)

Alternative rock has always seemed a bit vague as a classification for a band such as Cake. Now, alternative energy - that's an apt label to slap on them.

Recorded at their own studio in southern California, Cake's first offering in seven years, "Showroom of Compassion," is another dash of the band's idiosyncratic rock.

Rock it may be, but it also boasts a little bit of hip-hop, some funk and blues, country, and a dash of folk and jazz - and of course vocalist John McCrea's slacker-poet metaphors and monotone delivery.

"Federal Funding" kicks things off with a gloomy mid-tempo grind, "What's Now is Now" has a funky start-and-stop bass line, and the doom-filled "Mustache Man (Wasted)" relates a random hookup gone wrong through some hysterical imagery ("With the mustache man on the carpet of his van, you can feel your fatty tissues giving way to sweaty hands").

They bring some Carter family style country on "Bound Away" and use mellow trumpet to pine for lost loves on "The Winter" ("Being in the places where we used to be. Somehow being there without you's not the same").

Solid lead single "Sick of You" is full of contagious riffs and has Cake's trademark backing-band shouts, and the highs and lows of "Easy to Crash" make for one of their strongest tracks, with a guitar crunch that earns the right to be played loud.

Cake isn't branching out or breaking their mold on "Showroom of Compassion," but with so many styles seamlessly mingling through virtually every track, who's complaining?

Alternative rock? Hardly.

CHECK THIS TRACK OUT: The lo-fi funk of "Long Time" is vintage Cake, with a slight hip-hop backbeat, staccato guitar work, horns, minimal synth and contagious harmony vocals - and, hey, it's even got hand claps.