If love was a drug, would the government outlaw it? Can you imagine the FDA approving a drug whose frequent side effects include increased heart rate, inability to think straight, sweating, stammering, and loss of judgment? In the past that might have been difficult, but today it doesn't seem so far-fetched. Outrageous Cherry offer love in packet form on the cover of their latest album, Our Love Will Change the World, an image that together with the album title forms a sort of obtuse pun that's nevertheless fairly clever.
The album itself offers packets of a different kind: Two-to-three minute packets of sugary retropop that swings to the beat of the 1960s, finding middle ground between sloppy psych, Spector reverb, Nuggets garage punk, and the syncopated stomp of Motown, which is coincidentally also the Cherry's hometown. It's nice to hear them so effortlessly kick out a concise, instantly appealing batch of melodious songs again-- they experimented with conceptual themes and running the clock a little too long on 2002's The Book of Spectral Projections and indulged in more acidic psych on last year's Supernatural Equinox. Drummer Carey Gustafson has that slapping Funk Brothers beat down pat, and the melodies tumble from lead Cherry Matthew Smith's head with an urgency unheard since 1999's masterful Out There in the Dark. That's still the band's best album, but Our Love is certainly a worthy successor.
A return to straight-up, ecstatic pop bliss is immediately evident: Opener "Pretty Girls Go Insane" has harmonica wailing over stomping drums as Smith's trumpet blasts a fanfare for the common confused lover. Smith's mild, smooth-toned tenor is a perfect counterpoint to Larry Ray's fuzzy guitar leads, and the layered male/female harmonies on the unexpected breakdown near the end build tension nicely for the finale, when the harmonica wails back into the mix. They run the gamut elsewhere from the pummeling pop explosion of "Unless" to the lilting midtempo goo of "Why Don't We Talk About Something Else" and from the title track to the melancholy balladeering of "You're a Reflection of Infinite Chaos", whose relative lack of reverb only makes the heartbreaking coda all the more crushing.
When Gustafson and new bassist Courtney Sheedy join Smith for some Vermont maple harmonies on "What have You Invented Today?", the stars align. That sticky song is the greatest kind of escapist pop singalong: It's not the kind of thing that will change the world, but it's a mighty good time.
