The Space Cakes
"Five years that have been spent really well are those between the first demo-tape by
The Space Cakes and this last work: I don't know the sound of the beginning,
but I am sure no band owns since the very start the great instrumental richness,
the amazing balance of old-style garage taste and the exorbitant team-work the
combo shows here. We find ourselves before a band which is by now experienced
in the art of sonic story-telling, lavish in dispensing excellent vibrations
of the Sixties, extremely mature in bulding polyhedric cathedrals of sounds and
colours, recalling the best in Garage history, psychedelic accents and a mod
backtaste. The Space Cakes are surely not lacking technique, being real
masters in enriching the already superb ideas of the songwriting with
white-hot performances, in which the organ skill is just the point of a
steady rhythmic structure and a very "vintage"-fashioned guitar playing.
Suffice it to say about the impetuosity of "I", "Heavy Stone", the rides
of "Fuel For My Soul", or "Tell Me Why": listening to records like this
we realise how we got used to low standards since a while ago, and, above
all, how much we need to hear again bunches of ideas and sounds, generously
given into an orgiastic return to the flowery and multi-coloured ages of
rock pre-history.
How many 1998 dated bands, or records, are there (in Italy, but not only,
given the sad general situation) of whom you can say: they play great,
have very many ideas and are fascinating to listen to?
I will go too far: records as "In a Forbidden Place" (this only, I think,
so far) have the devilish ability to make us think, even just for a moment,
that nothing good has been released after 1975 or something back then; but...
be careful, don't let yourself be too much conquered by this urge of a new
Sixties metaphysics."
Andrea Dani - Rockerilla no. 218 oct. 1998
"Even if the echo of the ephemeral (and anyway underground) moment of glory
that it experienced also in Italy in the second half of the '80s has long gone
by now, sixties-garage is still the bread and butter of a not so small set of groups.
Among these keepers of ancient musical traditions are The Space Cakes (from Mestre),
whose 13 new songs-which follow the vinyl album "Taste The Flavour Of", released by
Misty Lane Rec.-renovate the old but still rich of excitement appeal of a pleasant
and captivating sound, that mainly privileges insinuating harmonies created by
velvet-like lysergic keyboards to a "punk"-type energy; "In A Forbidden Place"
lies among rhythm'n'blues, pop, and stronger occasional rock'n'roll accelerations,
with a good recording quality, meant anyway to raise pretty vintage suggestions. A
product that has qualities to be appreciated by a larger public than the usual garage
fans."
Gianluca Picardi - Il Mucchio Selvaggio no. 322, 6-12 oct. 1998
© Copyright 1998, 2001 by The Space Cakes