Search - Outrageous Cherry :: Stay Happy

"The past disappears around every corner"

John L Murphy | Los Angeles | 01/20/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Outrageous Cherry, a band out of Michigan, has been at the forefront of American neo-psychedelic music for over a decade of recordings. They tend to all be solid, well-defined, and confident albums. I give this three stars as another consistent record from OC, neither advancing or retreating from their signature style. Here, the tone does shift into early 70s rock, but a three-minute, radio-friendly, more terse mode. The band does tend to disappear within its music, and this may account for their rather low profile on a wider scale among indie bands who continue the innovations of the late 60s and early 70s without sounding like prog, Zep, Beatles, Stones, Who, wimp-pop or freak folk! OC are more Top 40 (as it was in 1972) sounding, but oddly enough, much harder to pin down than their competitors to one particular style. Rather, they revive a mood.



Matthew Smith again produces and sings, Larry Ray plays guitar, backed ably if subtly by a rhythm section of considerably younger women. While Smith and Ray have receding hairlines and graying countenances, they still remain young in their perseverance in what they have shimmied out as their own musical craft. It's not as ambitious in the classic rock sense as The Soundtrack of Our Lives, not as derivative as Brian Jonestown Massacre or BRMC, not willfully eccentric like Robyn Hitchcock, not spaced-out like Julian Cope, not as hermetic as Lilys, and not as whimsical as Apples in Stereo. I like all of the musicians I mentioned, by the way, but they are all easier to pin the influences upon than OC.



"Stay Happy" reminds me of an album around 1972, influenced by wry "let's write a hit" Velvets circa "Loaded" and Lou Reed's early, more concise, song-oriented solo work. But OC lacks the ennui of Reed's vocal delivery, even if OC has lyrics nearly as grim. This is neither a bad nor good quality of OC per se: it's up to the listener to decide thumbs up or down. This album, unlike the sprawling tunes on albums by OC such as "The Book of Spectral Projections," is far pithier. A definite T. Rex/Marc Bolan guitar riffage conjures up 1972 too, but OC lacks Bolan's flair and the glam elements so prominent in T. Rex production are dampened here.



This muted quality carries through this low-key record, as it does many OC efforts. The band tends to be rather self-effacing. The cover art is loud and retro, but it is surrounded by a dark blank, the candy-colored lettering stays within its borders, and the logo is eye-catching and suitably early 70s, but it is also contained within the frame of the CD.



The artistic control over the music also keeps "Stay Happy" within rather conservative limits. OC stays faithful to their tradition of early 70s riffy, mid-tempo rock, with appropriate vocals that do not draw much attention to themselves-- Smith prefers to blend into the music rather than separate himself from it. The band evidently works well together, and is tight, but the songs do not catch fire and leap out. Perhaps I wish for more dazzling music, but OC by now, as I have heard on all of their previous recordings (I have them all and have listened to them from their earliest discs) knows where it wants to be, and if it's in a cult status on a respectable and quality indie label, Rainbow Quartz, more power to them.



OC makes subtler music from this time when the acid had melted and the day-glo posters had given way to black lights. They evoke a woozier, stoned, come-down sensibility. While other groups such as Flaming Lips try harder to be noticed and taken for "characters," OC blends in nearly unnoticed into their chosen era's evocation. This "morning after" music may well take time--when the vibes are aligned exactly right-- to grow on you."