reviews / 2009

OUTRAGEOUS CHERRY - Universal Malcontent

Name: OUTRAGEOUS CHERRY – Universal Malcontent
Item: Universal Malcontent
Rating: 6.5
Author: Francesco Giordani

2009 (Alive Naturalsound Records)

freakbeat, psychedelia

by Francesco Giordani

6.5

The songs of Detroit's Outrageous Cherry sound like covers of lost psych-pop gems from the mid-Sixties, yet they're actually pieces written now, in the 2000s. The band, active for several years now with a sizeable discography behind it, arrives these days at its new album of original material, following last year's anthology compilation, and the thrust of its relentless "speleological" quest hasn't shifted an inch. The game is this: digging through songs along time tunnels that open out into some unknown corner of the swinging London of forty-odd years ago, and building there simulacra capable of blurring the line with, and rivalling, the original models.

From Kaliedoscope to Tomorrow, by way of Blossom Toes, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Aphrodite's Child and Creation, there's plenty in this new "Universal Malcontent" to leave you disoriented, like playing hide-and-seek with the truth in a wax museum of psychedelia. Imitation, too, is in its own way an art — indeed a decent and honourable craft, insofar as its practice demands passion and erudite dedication — and songs like "I Recognize Her" and "The Song Belong To Everyone" make a more than convincing case for that, as well as being genuinely enjoyable.

A record for connoisseurs, in any case.

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21/06/2009

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Francesco Giordani, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition