The Cakekitchen - Stompin' Through The Boneyard

Now essentially a duo, with Jean-Yves Douet handling the drums and Jefferies handling just about everything else, on their fourth album the Cakekitchen cook up another fine set of the post-punk/indie rock with which they made their name: rock mixed with experimental diversions that's just slightly off kilter. They make no radical reinventions at this point -- even eternal guest performer Galbraith and his violin surfaces again on the part-noise, part-sweet strum "The Mad Clarinet" -- but Jefferies' songs still have fire. "Tell Me Why You Lie" starts things off very promisingly. Brash and just thrashy enough, his very low-key vocals sneak around the three-chord fuzz well. "Even as We Sleep" raises the bar a bit higher by tackling the most recent of rock clichés -- the soft/loud/soft approach -- with more snaky delicacy than most. The quiet parts have a sharp tension and the noisier places maintain more of a wash than a roar, turning into a feedback, waltz-time swing in the song's midsection before concluding as it started. Production throughout is a (likely intentional) mix of the crisp and the boxy. Recording credits are named as cities rather than studios, so it's likely that Jefferies recorded things as he went; as ever he has a wonderful talent for arranging what he and his cohorts come up with. "Bad Bodied Girl" stands out here; while a more straightforward song, the layering of acoustic and electric guitars flows excellently. Jefferies as a performer again more than meets the criterion for interesting, whether considering the raging riff and shades of queasy feedback that carry "Mr. Adrian's Lost in His Last Panic Attack" or the piano/guitar combination that concludes the lengthy "Hole in My Shoe." In sum, another fine album from a remarkably consistent band.