Album Review: My Friend The Chocolate Cake - The Revival Meeting

The joy of a new addition to My Friend The Chocolate Cake's sporadic catalogue is coloured by the loss of co-founder Andrew Carswell.

His mandolin was one of the band's idiosyncratic colours - between cello and violin jigging and/or sighing, and David Bridie's sandy observations on the state of a heart and/or a nation. The band's contrasting styles still work: Satellite Boy (Pump Organ) is a circus in Tom Waits' backyard, Busojaras an Eastern European village festival, while Stori Rabaul offers a Melanesian ramble. But many would identify them by Bridie's thoughtful laments. The Fire Turns To Embers is a life ebbing away, a fitting farewell note to Carswell's passing.