Shine Cherries

Writing songs like a slow breeze on a desert afternoon, Albuquerque's Shine Cherries bring you songs of simmering introspection and slow, slow twang. Founded in the tumultuous year of 2001, Albuquerque's Shine Cherries takes the quiet road less traveled. Like a slightly twangier version of the band Low, Michelle Collins (guitar,theremin, vocals),Chris Kitchen (bass), Johnny Cassidy (bass, vocals, keys),Ryan Martino(drums, guitar), and Jeffrey Richards (guitar, drums, vocals, banjo) produce music perfect for a hot desert afternoon; like vapor off the mesas after a summer rain. Shine Cherries have shared stages with bands such as Cat Power, Victoria Williams, The Czars, and Akron/Family. Previous members of Venus Diablo, Hazeldine, Vic Chesnutt,Fisher Kings, and Young Black Sabbath Teenagers. Shine Cherries first release, on the baby-faced Little Kiss label, was just released January 2005. Like momma said after whippin up a bunch of blue corn hotcakes..."Get em while they're hot!" (available at milesofmusic.com) Here's a Review of the Album courtesy of Miles Of Music... From Albuquerque, NM, each of the trio that comprises Shine Cherries have individually worked with the likes of Nels Andrews, Vic Chesnutt, Venus Diablo and Hazeldine. Mixing indie rock lethargy with downbeat mountain folk, they have delivered, on their debut 6-track EP, a moody and spare offering of hypnotic splendor. Singer/guitarist Michelle Collins breathes a slow, almost childlike air of longing into every word while a lazy tempo lumbers along musically with sorrowful beauty. This will interest fans of Transmissionary Six, Low, Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter and anyone looking for the perfect soundtrack to a fever dream. (Little Kiss Records) A Review( Greenmanreview.com), Shine Cherries are a trio from Albuquerque, New Mexico and are kindred spirits with the more well-known Handsome Family. Both groups play Americana filtered through a rock music sensibility. But whereas The Handsome Family take existential despair head-on and make a post-modern lemonade, Shine Cherries are more self-effacing as they tend to approach the melancholic more cautiously. This is not to say that they don't confront it, because they do. Rather, I mean that they embrace the melancholy without dissecting and reducing it.Weighing in at just over 30 minutes, Shine Cherries is more an EP than an album. The six songs do, however, give a good estimate of their approach. The opener, "Palm of Your Hand," is the aural equivalent of rice paper with Michelle Collins' waif-like voice front and center. It's a beautiful song that makes you feel as though you're floating on a soft desert breeze and reminded me of Ryan Adams's more tender moments with Whiskeytown. This delicate sense becomes muddled just a bit once you realize that Collins has taken a page out of the Michael Stipe playbook with her words being all but indistinguishable. "Fight or Flight" leans towards more traditional country musically and lyrically. It opens with "It's so sad to hear you say/that what I long for won't come my way" and from there Collins gives her vocal chords a bit more of workout while Jeffrey Richards' lilting banjo churns underneath.The next couple of songs bring Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt to mind. "Mosquito" burns slowly and its muscular, fuzzy guitars are reminiscent of what the Tupes did to Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Effigy." "Atmosphere" finds bassist Johnny Cassidy adding his voice to the mix as well, plus there are the lonely keys of a piano lingering in the background. The song stands out with its spacey, echoing feedback that made me think of the song of the same name from Son Volt's last album, Okemah and the Melody of Riot. "You Wouldn't Dare" picks up the pace, but only just. The rimshots at the beginning of the song give it a vaguely contemporary country sound but it doesn't last. However, most of Collins' vocals are understandable here. "Destiny" is the final six minutes of somberness. I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4