Product Description

John McCrea's off-key, languid half-rap, half-croon ramblesover horn-laden indie-rock and crashes into Mariachi-band melodies while he dashes off less patently goofy than off-kilter lyrics such as "with fingernails that shine like justice". It's a formula that doesn't sound like a sure success forone album, let alone a slew, yet COMFORT EAGLE would bring Sacramento band Cake's total to four overwhelmingly catchy albums over six years.
Perhaps due to the pop crossover ofsingles like "The Distance" and "Never There", it's easy toforget that Cake is stylistically closer to Pavement than to all the fly-by-night goof-rock bands. While McCrea's lyrics are winking, referential, hyper-self-aware, and occasionally smug or silly, they also wind appealingly, wax cleverly, and are highly memorable; not a word seems out of place. COMFORT EAGLE abounds with hooks from the trickling keyboards of the magnificent and oblique "Meanwhile Rick James.".. to their ubiquitous alluring trumpet on opening single "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" and the emphatic catch-phrase "he is calling you dude" lining the title track. For COMFORT EAGLE, Cake is back at their full complement of five with the integration of guitarist Xan McCurdy into the fold and the tightness flows through this hearty and eclectic record.

Track Listing

1. Opera Singer
2. Meanwhile Rick James...
3. Shadow Stabbing
4. Short Skirt/Long Jacket
5. Commissioning A Symphony In C
6. Arco Arena
7. Comfort Eagle
8. Long Line Of Cars
9. Love You Madly
10. Pretty Pink Ribbon
11. World Of Two

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46778 in Music
• Released on: 2001-11-05
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
That Cake have recorded Comfort Eagle at all should be a cause for some celebration. When two-fifths of Cake defected to form Deathray after the release of their sophomore album, Fashion Nugget, some wondered if Sacramento's answer to Camper Van Beethoven would disappear into the land of one-hit wonders--especially since Cake's lone hit, "The Distance", had been penned by departing guitarist Greg Brown. But true to bandleader John McCrea's deadpan cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", Cake turned around and repeated their success with 1998's Prolonging the Magic and the infectious single "Never There". Comfort Eagle arrived with news of drummer Todd Roper's departure, which probably explains the addition of drum programming to McCrea's ever-expanding credits. Like Beck, McCrea's self-sufficiency is only matched by an overriding ironic sensibility. It serves him well on the title track where, above mock Middle Eastern drones, he takes on all poseurs ("Now his hat is on backwards, he can show you his tattoos / He's in the music business, he is calling you 'dude'"). By comparison, "Short Skirt/Long Jacket", a song that dates back to McCrae's coffeehouse years, sounds formulaic (which probably explains its selection as the album's first single). No matter, tracks like "Long Line of Cars" and "Meanwhile, Rick James..." are sufficiently intriguing to make up for it. Factor in the distinctive trumpet embellishments of Vincent DiFiore, the band's other original member, and Comfort Eagle seems guaranteed to ensure that, no matter what happens, Cake will survive. --Bill Forman

Customer Reviews

The Essential Cake
Cake have been close to creating their perfect record a few times over. Fashion Nugget and Prolonging The Magic had some superb indie-pop on them. The problem was that alongside great stuff like Friend Is A Four Letter Word or Never There were songs that simply didn't do too much. And with John McCrea's deadpan monotone delivery songs could meld into one another creating a melody that sounded much the same as the last song. So it's a pleasant surprise that Comfort Eagle doesn't have a bum note on it. It's everything McCrea has promised and more. Short Skirt/Long Jacket sounds like vintage Beck. The title track is a superb grooving rocker with perfectly pitched horns and echoed vocals. Long Line Of Cars is one of the most perfect pop songs I have had the pleasure of hearing. Every instrument is blended perfectly, unwinding until they all meet in a stunning effortless blast of horns. Meanwhile, Rick James follows a similar pattern of an escalating guitar part bouncing off a too-cool-to-be-forgotten bass line that'll be stuck in your head for weeks. The irony here then is that now that 3/5 of Cake have up and left the two remaining members (McCrea and the genuinely unsung Vincent Difiore) have stepped up to the plate and then some. The sameness seems to have lifted (unfortunately to return somewhat on follow up Pressure chief) and everything Cake have suggested they could offer is offered in spades. Comfort Eagle is pop perfection and by far Cake's best offering.

Appealing slacker rock with some fine moments
I have come to Cake late, and circuitously: I wound up buying Comfort Eagle sound unheard, having stumbled across the lyrics to "Comfort Eagle" itself, which I thought justified an outlay of a fiver by themselves (except the reference to "Comfort Eagle" itself, which I couldn't fathom - if anyone knows, do write and let me in on the secret).

The album is pretty much what I expected: It's neat, quirky stuff, stuffed to the gills with the über-irony that afflicts sort of rock musician who is given to social comment these days. Pop singers don't wear their hearts on their sleeves anymore, and John McCrea is no exception: his lyrics are very clever, very wry, very arch, but they give nothing at all away: the irony is almost defensive in its refusal to admit to any real feeling: we know what McCrea thinks is silly but not what he likes, which would be much more revealing.

The instrumentation confirms this impression; long on chirpy horn lines, kooky keyboard hooks and cheeky little guitar riffs which come not from the class bully but from the scrawny kid who hangs out with him, wisecracking at everyone but never letting himself get caught alone, and fundamentally not putting anything on the line.

And the drum tracks are all either programmed or sampled - which strikes me as the height of laziness from guitar-pop band, to the point of being disrespectful to its audience: could Cake not be bothered to even hire a session drummer? With a running total of a shade under thirty seven minutes, it's a wonder they bothered to record the album at all.

All that sounds like I'm pretty down on this album, but I'm not: these are, at the end of the day, fairly superficial complaints, and they wouldn't, by themselves, put too much distance between this album and greatness. For what it is - within its ironic genre - Comfort Eagle works well, and repays repeated listening.

Still, it's not quite great, but it has some very nice moments indeed: the title track Comfort Eagle is irresistible, and the track which follows, "Long Line of Cars" is a cracker, and - maybe - refutes my complaints above.

Olly Buxton

Delicious
I had heard of Cake but never bothered to check them out until I saw the terrible 'Orange County' and heard one of their songs. It was such an amazing song that I no longer had any excuse not to check them out. I bought Comfort Eagle and was very very pleasantly surprised.

Some of the songs are growers but I've come to realise that some of my favourite songs didn't make a huge impact on me when I first heard them. This is one of those albums that you can have on repeat and not grow tired of. I like the fact that they are a very instrumental group, with trumpets etc... heard in most of the songs. The lyrics are witty, the beats are great. A real gem of an album.