Lisa Loeb: Cake And Pie : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Lisa Loeb hopes to find gold in them thar hills of California. She may yet find it. Cake and Pie, her first album in four years and the first for her new label, finds the New York transplant exploring her rocker chick psyche will. Electric guitars sizzle, vivifying Loeb's streams of consciousness and saving such tracks as "The Way It Really Is," "You Don't Know Me" (co-writer Dweezil Zappa adds his trademark humor and fine guitar work) and "Someone You Should Know" (the album's first single) from the maudlin. She doesn't leave the folk pop of her past behind: "Drops Me Down" works better with every listen. Despite her collaborations with the likes of Glen Ballard (Alanis Morisette) and Nashville's Randy Scruggs, Loeb slides into head-scratching silliness (Loeb came up with "I was thinking/You're my flat tire," from "Too Fast Driving," all by herself), but not often enough to deflate a surprisingly good Cake and Pie.

MARIE ELSIE ST. LEGER
(February 22, 2002)