**1/2 Cake Like

GOODBYE, SO WHAT

(Vapor)

Sweet, messy, fragile -- they're Cake Like all right. The all-female trio known for their latter-day punk/DIY success story -- they picked up their boyfriends' instruments on a whim, banged out postpunk as if they'd invented it themselves, and had barely learned how to play when they were discovered and signed by John Zorn -- have acquired some inevitable polish over six years and three records but are no less endearing for their mix of trailer-park kitsch and downtown Manhattan irony. Singer Kerri Kenney can't quite balance the sarcasm with the earnestness her music requires (she's better-known for her TV sketch-comedy work on The State and Viva Variety), but as a comic, she does know timing. The CD's 12 tunes clock in at a punklike 33:35; they're more ideas for songs than songs, and when they run out, Cake Like know when to stop. With Jody Seifert's shambling drums, Nina Hellman's feedback-squealing guitars, and Kenney's nimble fuzztone bass and whisper-to-a-scream vocals (backed by sugary la-la harmonies from her bandmates), Cake Like resemble no one so much as the Breeders (remember them?). In 1993, this album would have sounded like genius; now, it's merely an almost classical-sounding noise-pop record.

-- Gary Susman