It took six years for Cake to release its latest studio CD of new material, “Showroom Of Compassion.” Singer/guitarist John McCrea realizes that gap in time wasn’t ideal. But he and his bandmates had bigger issues to resolve before the group could resume the creative side of its career.
“A lot of that had to do with having, being forced really, to restructure our business,” McCrea said of the six-year gap.
They parted ways with Columbia Records and started their own label, Upbeat Records.
If things were changing in major ways with Cake’s business, fans will be happy to know that the group sounds very much like itself on “Showroom Of Compassion.”
The group’s satisfaction with the album is apparent in the fact that Cake has been slotting several of its songs into its live set.
“We’ll probably be playing five or six songs from the new album,” McCrea said. “But that said, we don’t use a set list. We kind of just ask ourselves what song we feel like playing at the end of each song and play that song. It’s sort of self-preservation so we don’t feel like a machine. And we actually do still enjoy playing live shows. I think for me, mostly because we don’t use a set list.”
As on the five previous albums Cake has released since forming in 1991 in Sacramento, Calif., its sound is built primarily around angular (but catchy) guitar lines that are intertwined with horn or keyboard parts. This leaves plenty of space for McCrea to deliver his deceptively melodic vocals in his distinctive deadpan style.
Like Bad Religion, the Ramones or AC/DC, Cake’s sound is so identifiable that it can seem like the group is making the same album over and over again. McCrea is well aware of his group’s singular sound, but feels no one Cake album has been like its predecessor. And he isn’t about to reshape the band’s sound just for the sake of change.
“Hopefully the melodies are really different,” he said. “I think that’s the core of the song, and I understand how people want you to reinvent the arrangement process from album to album. I understand that. But what if that individual song doesn’t want that? That’s my point. And yes, we do have a challenge in keeping things fresh.
“All I can say is hopefully the melodies and the subject matter of the songs have enough variation to them,” McCrea said. “I know there are themes that recur, but hopefully there’s enough variation to where it doesn’t matter so much.”
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Concert preview
Cake
9 p.m., Dec. 31, $100-$55
Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta 404-881-2100, www.foxtheatre.org
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