Outrageous Cherry

With a timeless yet distinctive mix of bubblegum pop, garage rock, and psych, Outrageous Cherry were an enduring part of the Detroit rock scene and an international cult favorite for nearly three decades. Using singer/songwriter Matthew Smith's sweet vocals and guitarist Larry Ray's expressive leads as the foundations of their sound, the band's nods to their influences -- which included the Beach Boys, the Velvet Underground and Love -- always sounded fresh and effortless instead of self-consciously retro. Within this niche, Outrageous Cherry had range. On 1994's self-titled debut and 1999's Out There in the Dark, they delivered jangly, irresistible songs that sounded like long-lost hits; on 2001's The Book of Spectral Projections, they dove deep into prog and space rock. The band's consistent -- and consistently good -- output ended only when Ray died in 2017, with 2018's Meet Me in the Shadows providing a fittingly bittersweet epilogue to Outrageous Cherry's career. Singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer Matthew Smith and lead guitarist Larry Ray formed Outrageous Cherry in 1991 and crafted a hook-laden garage-pop sound that focused on their interplay thanks to the band's minimalist floor tom and snare drum kit. Outrageous Cherry's first single, "Pale, Frail Lovely One," arrived in 1993 on the local Third Gear label, and also appeared on the band's self-titled 1994 debut album, which was co-released by Bar/None and March Records. Outrageous Cherry returned to Third Gear for 1996's Stereo Action Rent Party, a covers album that included an inspired reworking of Petula Clark's "Sign of the Times," and the following year's second full-length Nothing's Gonna Cheer You Up, which featured some of their most expansive rockers as well as nuggets of bubblegum pop. In 1999, Outrageous Cherry moved to DF2K, the new music imprint of the classic '50s and '60s label Del-Fi, for the excellent Out There in the Dark. That year, they also contributed a version of "Keep Everything Under Your Hat" to the Skip Spence tribute More Oar. The band released 2001's prog- and space rock-influenced The Book of Spectral Projections on Alan McGee's Poptones label. It was reissued the following year by Rainbow Quartz, which also released 2003's similarly trippy Supernatural Equinox, and the Stay Right Here for a Little While EP. Outrageous Cherry returned to a poppier direction on 2004's Why Don't We Talk About Something Else EP, 2005's Our Love Will Change the World, and 2006's aptly named Stay Happy. In 2008, Wicked Cool Record Co issued the band's first retrospective, Wide Awake in the Spirit World: The Best of Outrageous Cherry. For their 2009 Alive Records debut Universal Malcontents, Outrageous Cherry added '70s glam and Krautrock to their palette, while the following year's Seemingly Solid Reality focused on Smith's introspective songwriting. In 2014, they switched to Burger Records, which issued the compilation Retrospective: 1993-2010 as well as The Digital Age, one of the band's most lo-fi albums in years. In 2017, the band returned with the single "I Believe in Sunshine," but that October, Ray succumbed to lung cancer. Prior to his death, the band completed its final album, Meet Me in the Shadows, which Burger released in December 2018.
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