Caught in the Carousel

Cake

B-Sides and Rarities
Upbeat

Led by singer John McCrea's dazzling deadpan, Cake have always been one of the most idiosyncratic, intelligent and interesting bands around. It's not uncommon to find elements of country, blues, folk, swing, disco and jazz in their compositions and over the years their covers of Willie Nelson's "Sad Songs and Waltzes" and the disco classic "I Will Survive" not only showcased their musical diversity, it demonstrated that the band's record collections were as rich and varied as their sound. B-Sides and Rarities backs this up even further, as the band take delightful cracks at Black Sabbath ("War Pigs"), Mel Tillis ("Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town") and Buck Owens ("Excuse Me, I Think I've Got A Heartache"). Piero Umiliani's instrumental "Mahna Mahna" is a horn-filled romp; their take on Barry White's "Never Never Gonna Give You Up" is delightfully swervy indie rock soul and Kathy Dee's "Subtract One Love (Multiply The Heartaches") is country that aches exactly where it's supposed to. Now for the bad news: the instrumental original "Conroy" is a bit of a throwaway; a wobbly rendition of "Strangers In The Night" sounds like drunk college kids doing karaoke in their dorm room and a live note-for-note "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" recorded on tour in Australia sounds not much different than the album version and the lack of any audience clapping at the beginning or the end makes it oddly sterile. Although the closer—a live version of "War Pigs"—does feature an energetic audience, it's hard to justify it opening and closing this collection. After almost fifteen years, it seems Cake should have better unreleased material; they're a charming, quirky and truly original outfit, but it's hard to believe they scraped the vaults here. Not only that, but there are no cheeky liner notes and no dates for when the songs were recorded. A curious, halfhearted effort that should have been much, much better.

—Alex Green