If anyone would demand Milwaukee’s Bryan Cherry to pick a genre and stick to it, Until the Rainbows sounds like his defiant retort. The singer-songwriter-guitarist’s sixth release could pass for a current dispatch from a long-forgotten classic rocker, had that rocker picked up on reggae and acquired a desire to score among listeners of adult R&B radio and poetry slam attendees. If that’s a diverse berth Cherry intends to inhabit, he does so with little regard for a unifying style throughout the set’s nine tracks.
Yet, whether extolling the joy of ganja to a one-drop riddim or pondering global unity over a complement of classical strings, Cherry doesn’t really sound disjointed. Even in his most intense moments, he sails on a contented hippie vibe, sounding like Jimi Hendrix’s throatier little brother. When he concludes Rainbows with a minute of spoken-word free verse, he sounds less copacetic, but contemplating humanity’s relationship to war can put a person on edge.
