The current line up of "Cake" is Vincent Di Fiore (trumpet, backing vocals), John McCrea (guitars, organ, moog, lead vocals), Gabriel Nelson (bass, mandolin, guitar, piano), and Todd Roper (drums, percussion, backing vocals). Considering the range of each member of this band, it's surprising that they also have a whole list of guest musicians on their third album, "Prolonging The Magic."

"Prolonging The Magic" takes us on a new musical adventure with unexpected twists and turns with each new song. "Satan Is My Motor" might be called Country/Funk. McCrea has an unbelievable sense of using rests, leaving you hanging, feeling off balance. He doesn't want you to feel completely comfortable with what he's wrought. There's a bare quality to his music, that has the listener feeling as though he's walked into the middle of the production. It's an exposed feeling of honesty, like listening to Bob Dylan.

"Mexico" is the same way. Peddle steel and acoustic strumming form a backdrop to McCrea's Dylanesque vocal. This is stripped down, a sort of Tex/Mex country. It's about leaving a relationship behind and moving on.

The single, "Never There," has the same barren quality, but this is definitely not country. The infectious bass beat carries most of the song. An uneasy trumpet solo mixes with synthesizer, McCrea's distorted vocal conveys the feeling of the song, while its words express the abandonment found in bad a relationship. "To think I held you yesterday/ Your love was just a game/ You tell me that you love me so/ You tell me that you care/ But when I need you, baby, you're never there. . ."

"Guitar" utilizes a musical saw to help create an off beat mood. McCrea's nearly spoken vocal drifts over the melange of different guitars and noises. "If I threw my guitar out the window. . ." It has a strange halting quality to it, and the subject matter contributes to this. "You Turn the Screws" begins with piano and trumpet, which paint a picture from another continent, perhaps of a French bistro. The rhythm is plodding, relentless, fitting the subject of someone who turns the screws expecting others to do the same.

Greg Vincent's pedal steel brings a countryish feel to "Walk On By" at times, but this is mostly a soft rock song. The guitar rhythms on this song stay with you awhile, but you won't mind. The walking bass line is excellent, halting, carrying the listener along. It's a great song, unlike anything one hears on the radio today. "Sheep Go To Heaven" has a much heavier sound. The raspy guitar that opens the song carries through, while other instruments overlay, creating texture. Despite the downer concepts expressed in the song, it manages to be funny. The refrain, "Sheep go to heaven/ Goats go to hell. . ." says it all. McCrea shares it with what sounds like a high school chorus, and trumpet plays a primary role on the song.

"When you Sleep" sets up a musical conversation between three guitars and percussion at its beginning. Other instruments join in one by one; trumpet, drums, vocals. This one has a strange question at its center, "When you sleep/ Where do your fingers go?" The song explores the myriad possibilities. Drums, guitar and bass mesh to form the jumpy rhythm in "Hem of your Garment." The song contemplates feelings of inadequacy. "I'm not fit to touch/ The hem of your garment."

The vocal intro to "Alpha Beta Parking Lot" is uneasy and slow. Soft guitar and drum join in to create a self-conscious feeling that makes it a bit unpleasant to listen to it. The listener isn't supposed to feel comfortable while listening to the song. It's about a relationship break up that occurs in the "Alpha Beta Parking Lot," and it describes a rather unpleasant circumstance. "Breathing in the fumes from so many idling cars/ Right beneath the sign with the dusty yellow star/ Watching the sun go down. . ."

The song "Let Me Go" is a bit more playful, but retains the stripped down quality that all the songs demonstrate. This could almost be pop, with its repetitious refrain, but "Cake's" instrumentation leaves it too drab for pop, which is not to say that the song is bad.

My favorite song on the album, "Cool Blue Reason," examines the cold calm that can replace overwhelming emotion when faced with horrible life changes. "Cool blue reason comes into your world/ There's two more dead in Texas/ And it's probably your girls/ Cool blue reason wraps around your throat/ The minutes change like seasons/ Only eight more hours to go. . ." The plodding rhythm fits the subject, and a guitar solo, with eerie keyboards, aids in the creation of the mood. It ends with synthesizer that sounds like a distorted siren. "Where Would I Be" looks at a relationship which leaves the participants unable to function apart. "Where would I be/ Without your arms around me?"

McCrae breaks a song down musically to its barest necessities. In some cases, I think he takes it too far, yet some of the songs are enhanced by the process. I see "Mexico," "Never There," "Sheep Go To Heaven" and "Cool Blue Reason" as the most successful of these songs.

"Cake" certainly isn't for everyone, but McCrae has a unique voice and much to say. The new single, "Never There," is sort of a flashback to their hit "The Distance," but truthfully, the rest of their new album, "Prolonging the Magic," doesn't sound much like that great song. This isn't to say that the rest of us should wallow in old "Cake," just be aware that when you buy your new "Cake," it may have a much different flavor than your last piece.