Customer Reviews

Everything's Going to Work Out Just Fine [Vinyl]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

...This album is for sunny days as well as rainy days. I have actually had to force myself not to listen to it, because I didn't want to wear it out. Just look at the cover, it explains everything. Noisy, confusing, haunting, colorful, deep, beautiful, raw, emotional, calming, stimulating, crude, machinery.

The title above, "One of the Best Albums of the 19th Century," is a tall order to fill, but for me, a completely true and almost understated statement. I first saw Cakekitchen open for Superchunk. Thank God I did, because I might have missed one of my favorite bands ever. What impressed me most was how the music was beautiful, haunting, and surprisingly full with only a guitarist and drummer. I have only been equally blown away by a band like this since Modest Mouse and Spacemen 3.

This album starts with a gem. This song has actually help me calm down from the fear of getting a "real" job after graduating college. The second track (at least I think so) might be considered a noisy number but Graeme Jefferies (Cakekitchen's frontrunner and leading member) knows where to put them. He doesn't use "noise" for the hell of it, it's perfectly placed to break the continuity and train of thought, but it's there to prove a point, to say something more, to help the listener be more than a "nice voice, nice riff" junkie, check this, to be realistic. The jackhammer (yes, a jackhammer!) in track two is always a wake up call to me, it catches me each time. It shows that music, lyrics, thoughts are more than just the easy, good stuff, it's also about those interuptions and inconveniences that fill the complete picture, help us learn, and make the good even better. Don't be afraid to listen to it, or even worse, stop you from listening to the rest of this album or albums. But don't feel too bad if you fast forward through track two either, I do it often enough, but a little voice in my head reminds that I am cheating myself each time.

From track three on ... I'm losing words to explain and lift up the rest of this album. The rest rise and fall and run in waves of repitition and reprises that make this album alsolutely heavenly. Most notably, "Overground Rail Catastrophe," "All the Tea in China," "You Never Run Out of Luck." Jefferies strings together these epic symphonies of sound that make one drool while it's playing and disappointed when it's over.

Just a note: all of Cakekitchen's other albums (including Graeme Jefferies' "Messages for the Cakekitchen" which should really be considered the first Cakekitchen album) are on an equal level, I just happen to like this one a lot! I have also picked up all of This Kind of Puishment's albums and they are just as good as well, just younger and noisier.

purified by sound, a Cakekitchen fan

Surprisingly Eno-esque, for better (All the Tea in China--which could be off Taking Tiger Mountain) and worse (the endless imitation Overground Rail Catastrophe), this penultimate album by Graeme Jeffries, who's pretty much by this stage the band, captures well his home-studio ethos, his appealingly dusky vocals, and his command of that delicate yet meaty Kiwi alt-pop droning melody. He reminds me at times of another Graeme, Downs, of the Verlaines, in his delivery and stylistic restlessness. Although I differ from others and regard the (simultaneously recorded, more or less) follow-up to this album, Stompin' Through the Boneyard as a better place to begin for newcomers, this sprawling yet cohesive low-key yet dynamic album belies the fact that it's mostly one musician at work.

If you are looking for a driving beat for your work out, keep looking. Some of the songs could pass for elevator music. A few had a driving beat, but it was not steady. I'd give it two or three stars in another classification.