Outrageous Cherry

This latest reverb-drenched full-length from Detroit psych-rock veterans Outrageous Cherry just may be the prolific unit’s most quintessential effort to date. Songwriting wise, it’s certainly the band’s most complex outing yet, as guitarist/vocalist, producer and principal penman Matthew Smith raises the bar with arrangements for horns and piano, and delves deep into the ballad pool on a couple of occasions here. Numerous Outrageous Cherry constants remain, though, like the band’s penchant for trippy, fuzzed-out guitar work (some of which is provided here by recent OC conscript Larry Ray), great vocal melodies (the strongest of which pilots "Why Don’t We Talk About Something Else” through sonic shoals) and dark love songs in which the subjects are typically troubled, sinister and more than a little bit insane. The CD’s stand-out instrumental track, a gritty, groovy number called "Detroit Blackout,” documents last year’s massive international power outage with generator-powered aplomb.