"A space opera of sorts, very different from anything we've done." This is how Outrageous Cherry frontman Matthew Smith once explained how this album was supposed to sound, back before it was released. Matthew Smith is a damn, dirty liar. First of all, this is hardly a space opera. When I hear the phrase "space opera", I think Buck Rogers belting out Kiri Te Kanawa arias in a corset. You get none of that.

Secondly, this is hardly "very different from anything [Outrageous Cherry] have done before." Not that that's a bad thing-- I dig Outrageous Cherry, and I've always found their swirling update on psychedelia enjoyable, regardless of how little the sound has changed over the years. So, under the assumption that he's a nice guy, I'm willing to forgive Smith's under-interview transgressions and just take his album for what it is: a pretty neat modern psych album.

Experienced fans of the Detroit quartet named for a shade of hair dye will be familiar with the elements here: piles and piles of reverb, Deb Agolli's Moe Tucker-inspired drumming, Smith's pleasing tenor, and a healthy layer of guitar fuzz. To Smith's credit, the format is a bit different from the Cherry's last outing, 1999's excellent Out There in the Dark, relying more on mood and noise than that album ever did-- a move that actually makes it more akin to the band's earlier records. Out There in the Dark was outstanding, boasting a clutch of songs that were instantly memorable, and a staggering consistency of craft.

The Books of Spectral Projections, recently released in the UK on ex-Creation labelhead Alan McGee's new Poptones imprint, can't quite make that claim, but it does have a wealth of moments (plus, it continue the tradition of horrible cover art that Out There kept up). The disc's primary failing is its breadth-- 20 songs in 80 minutes is just too long for an album like this; if only the best moments were kept, you'd have one rock-solid 45-minute pop pleaser.

Now, I admit it may be easy for the uninitiated to be skeptical of this band's knack for a pop hook, especially in light of song titles like "Electric Child of Witchcraft Rising", and "It's Only Sorcery", but Smith has this way of taking these incredibly absurd subjects like, say, time-traveling witches, and situating them in well-written, plaintively delivered songs that tend to make you forget the lyrics, or at least look the other way. And the music is so tightly executed, you may have a hard time convincing friends it's not period stuff: "It's So Nice to be Here" is worthy of a Barrett-led Pink Floyd, while "Here Where the Stars Are Cracking Up" feels like a late addition to the Nuggets box set.

Not everything meets the quality standards set by those two songs, though, and after ten years and five albums, the band's best work seems behind them. Still, there's amazingly nothing truly awful lurking on this album, and that the band are capable of creating psychedelic rock that doesn't feel forced or ironic speaks volumes of their talent. If you don't mind a little bit of sorcery creeping its way into your acid trip, The Book of Spectral Projections is pretty nice.

-Joe Tangari, November 15th, 2002