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Dusted Reviews
Artist: Outrageous Cherry Album: Our Love Will Change the World Label: Rainbow Quartz Review date: Mar. 1, 2005 |
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Even now, when the throwback garage-rock fetish has been in full swing for awhile and doesn’t seem to be slowing, Outrageous Cherry is remarkable for its full immersion in ’60s anachronism. One foot stays squarely planted in Jaggerian tough-guy swagger, while the other slides timidly toward psychedelia, as though the band just discovered it. The whole operation sounds frozen on Groundhog Day, 1967.
The OC leans more on fast hooks and cynical jive-talk here than it has on its last few outings, which nearly saw the band disappear into holographic ether. Our Love Will Change The World is filled with loose women and tight riffs that crackle like a fistful of Pop Rocks. “Pretty Girls Go Insane,” “(You’re Not) A Nice Girl” and “Trouble Girl” dispatch the sort of standoffish sophistry that marked Flowers-era Stones, while the punchy “Detroit Blackout” treats the ’03 power-outages with the same portentous glee that AM rockers invested in Vietnam protests back when.
Like Outrageous Cherry’s gloomy 1999 masterpiece Out There In The Dark, Our Love Will Change The World bears a relentlessly dark lyrical outlook. When optimism shines through the cracks in the bedroom ceiling, it’s ambiguous and ephemeral at best; the memorable moments chronicle humiliations and misunderstandings. It’s hard to notice, though, when that slightly off-key trumpet toots through the darkness. Seldom has such a negatively-charged lyricist teamed up with such a buoyant, superficially innocent band. That’s what made Outrageous Cherry interesting before garage rock got cool, and that’s what’ll keep it going for years.
By Emerson Dameron
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View all articles by Emerson Dameron