Comfort Eagle released

Comfort Eagle itself was released on July 24, 2001, to good reviews; Michael D. Clark of The Houston Chronicle described it as “Cake at its best”, while a reviewer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution stated that the album’s songs were “among the best of the band’s career”, praising McCrea for widening his vocal repertoire. James Montgomery, writing for UWIRE , noted a stylistic change, saying that “While the core sound of the band – honky tonk guitars, mariachi horns and salsa rhythms – remain intact, they have been stripped down to the core, replaced instead with ill Casio beats, rubbery funk and Stax-style horn bleats”. The album sold ~72,000″ copies in its first week, the highest sales in the band’s history, and eventually went gold. With the exception of a slot at the Atlanta On The Bricks Festival, playing for 90,000 people, the band chose to start the tour with small rather than large shows, such as in the Sacramento area, where they played for around 100 people. They launched their first full tour for the album in September, playing in the United States, Canada, and across Europe.