Great Like Cake rocks like Hot Snakes, These Arms Are Snakes and No Knife.
- Alternative Press: February 2012
Following in the tradition of the San Diego, CA's DIY indie music scene to date, Great Like Cake's debut is taut with layered riffs over dominant drums and underlying vocals. Falling somewhere between Hot Snakes and Minus the Bear, the quartet straddle the line between traditional post-hardcore and indie punk styles. Third track "Hot Strokes" stands apart as the strongest, and loudest, on the six-track album. Great Like Cake discard the ambience that surrounds their other songs and instead opt for screaming double vocals over a hard bass drum beat and a speedy, repeating guitar riff. Stallion Italian focuses on the vocal/guitar relationship, wherein each part feeds off the other in a two-dimensional way without the use of layered sounds. In effect, their raw approach distinguishes the band from more polished-sounding acts within their genre. Stallion Italian is a fierce debut from the San Diego natives. Their signature style sticks because of its intricate riff formations and structured sound while still allowing the space needed for the unit to expand in future releases.
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Exclaim.ca
Great Like Cake’s At the Drive In-style indie-rock harks back to the better side of emo.
- San Diego CityBeat 2012
It feels as if they are in opposition of current trends of super polished "post hardcore" and overtly stylized and pretentious indie rock, in that Stallion Italian has this "taking it back" vibe to it. So instead of multi-layered studio trickery we have raw, lively and catchy songs performed in an aggressive manner. Everything is open; each riff and each drum hit comes crashing down distorted and unhinged giving this endeavor a punk rock urgency their contemporaries lack by and large.
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halifaxcollect.blogspot.com
Great Like Cake are a newer band hailing from San Diego, however they are steeped in that city's distinct indie/DIY musical tradition.....the sound here isn't all that far off of Tanner, aMinature, No Knife or the Hot Snakes...a more recent and closer sonic comparison would be fellow San Diegoans, Lanterns.......nervous, elastic riffs over tight drumming topped off with decent vocals. To my knowledge this is their first release, hopefully there are many more to come..........
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mindintrusion.blogspot.com
Melodic indie-punk featuring members of Blue Sky Law, The Challenger Deep and Architect Sketch. Ferocious bass lines. Vocals get a bit lost, but who cares? I especially like the track “Hot Strokes” with its druggy-positive message “Right now nothing seems impossible.” This record rules!
- San Diego CityBeat 2011
Good shit right here you know!
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www.collective-zine.co.uk
Greg Gerardi - Guitar
Andy Kondrat - Bass
Mario Quintero - Drums
Rob Trout - Vocals
released February 5, 2010
Recorded by Greg Gerardi, Brian Millar and Mario Quintero
Mixed by Mario Quintero
Black Box Studios