2011, Upbeat Records

Showroom of Compassion is Cake's first album of new material since 2004's Pressure Chief, and their sixth studio album overall. The album was recorded over the last two and a half years and was produced and engineered by the band themselves at Cake's own solar electric powered studio in Sacramento, CA.

"Best-known for their ubiquitous hit 'The Distance,' Cake epitomized the postmodern, irony-drenched aesthetic of '90s geek-rock. Their sound freely mixed and matched pastiches of widely varying genres - white-boy funk, hip-hop, country, new wave pop, jazz, college rock, and guitar rock - with a particular delight in the clashes that resulted. Their songs were filled with lyrical non sequiturs, pop-culture references, and smirky satire, all delivered with bone-dry detachment by speak-singing frontman John McCrea. Cake's music most frequently earned comparisons to Soul Coughing and King Missile, but lacked the downtown New York artiness of those two predecessors; instead, Cake cultivated an image of average guys with no illusions or pretensions about their role as entertainers." - Steve Huey / All Music Guide