Cake’s long-awaited 6th studio offering, Showroom of Compassion, may be a bit of an unfortunately surprise for long-time fans of the band who were eager to see which direction they would take after a 6-7 year break from recording. The results aren’t all that unexpected: the usual stuff found in most Cake recipes (sorry) is all here, and still being done pretty well. That may be the problem with the record, however, since it leaves a pretty stale sound in the listener's ear. There are definitely some good tracks on here, but as a whole the album feels more like another B-sides offering than something the band had been working at for some time. There is still promise for this band’s particularly quirky style of alternative rock, but it seems like they’ll have to start progressing at least a little bit if they hope to stay somewhat relative in another decade of activity.
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