AMG Review of Everything's Driving You Crazy Cos You Just Can't Get What You Want

Ned RaggettÈ0´
All Music Guide

The Cakekitchen's 2006 album followed very much in the vein of Put Your Foot Inside in the Door, with Graeme Jefferies now playing literally everything on the disc from start to finish. His style at this point having been long established, the true joy of Jefferies' often-understated but always enjoyable brand of moody, ruminative rock & roll lies in hearing what he does with it each time around, and Everything's Driving You Crazy -- likely a sly reference to the earlier Everything's Going to Work Out Just Fine -- more than ever embraces the quieter side of his music in favor of the noisy and more feedback-laden side of other efforts. (That said, "Here Comes the Rain" -- not a Eurythmics cover nor something close to it -- has a quick, clipped arrangement that builds up to a bit of full-on rock-out, though in a restrained fashion nonetheless.) Piano comes to the fore more often, as on "Blue Bell Café," as does acoustic guitar at many points throughout, and the feeling is of a gray afternoon in Jefferies' home country of New Zealand crossed with an elegantly rainy European evening in a black and white movie. "The Prospector's Song" lives up to its title with an air of old-timey country plucking and pace, while "Girl, Hey Do You Want to Get It On?" takes an easygoing way around its salacious invitation. If nothing else, Jefferies' way around songtitles seems to have hit a new fever pitch of inspired rambling -- samples include "I'll Buy You One More Frozen Orange Juice" and "I Think I Had Too Much to Drink Last Night?"