The earliest roots of the band lie in the relationship between two students at Stony Brook College on Long Island. As far back as 1967, Sandy Pearlman and future rock critic Richard Meltzer had plans to conquer the rock ‘n’ roll world. With Pearlman managing the band and both he and Meltzer writing lyrics, they put together a group that included the core of the future BÖC – guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, keyboardist Allen Lanier, and drummer Albert Bouchard – known as Soft White Underbelly.
Agents of Fortune
Signed to Elektra Records, Soft White Underbelly recorded an unreleased album
and subsequently changed the band’s name to Oaxaca before settling on being
called the Stalk-Forrest Group. A second album recorded for the label was also
buried in the vaults, although a single was later released under the
Stalk-Forrest Group name. Dropped by the label and shuffling personnel, they
changed their name once again to Blue Öyster Cult and signed with Columbia
Records, which is where the BÖC story really begins.
The band’s
self-titled album was released in 1972 and scraped the bottom of the charts.
This must have been good enough to partially satisfy the label, as they were
attempting to promote BÖC as their very own homegrown version of Black
Sabbath. The debut album’s fortunes were helped by the media-savvy promotional
efforts of Pearlman and Meltzer, as well as the creation of the band’s
ubiquitous hook-and-cross logo, an important precursor to the imaginative logo
designs of heavy metal bands in the decade to follow.
Tyranny & Mutation
followed in 1973, and Secret Treaties in 1974, each album experienced
higher sales numbers. The powerful live double-album,
On Your Feet Or On Your Knees, was released in ‘75, but it would be the
following year’s effort, Agents of Fortune, that would prove to be the
band’s commercial breakthrough. Yielding a Top 40 single in “(Don’t Fear) The
Reaper,” the album would be the first in a string of Gold™ and
Platinum™-selling discs that culminated five years later with 1981’s
Fire of Unknown Origin.
The band stumbled badly, however,
both commercially and creatively, into the new decade. Original members had
left the band, or been asked to leave, and weak studio albums like 1983’s
The Revolution At Night and 1986’s Club Ninja alienated
long-time fans. With only Dharma and Eric Bloom left from the band’s original
line-up, BÖC continued to tour. Released in 1988, the band’s 14th album,
Imaginos, would also be its last at the time.
Blue Öyster Cult’s Imaginos
Back at the dawn of the ‘80s, however, Imaginos was originally planned by former BÖC drummer Albert Bouchard to be a solo work, a concept album based on a song cycle created by Sandy Pearlman back during the late 1960s. Almost six years in the making, Imaginos includes instrumental contributions from several of Bouchard’s NYC friends, including bassist Kenny Aaronson and guitarists Joe Satriani, Aldo Nova, and Robbie Krieger of the Doors.
When Bouchard was nearing the finish line with Imaginos, he found out
that the record label wasn’t exactly enamored of his efforts. They would only
agree to release the album under the Blue Öyster Cult name, so the master
tapes were sent to Pearlman and the band overdubbed vocals and
instrumentation. Thus the incorrect appearance that BÖC had reformed with its
original line-up, including Albert Bouchard…but it was all on paper, folks.
Met with confusion by fans and critics alike, and under-promoted to death by
the label, Imaginos was deemed an overall failure. BÖC was subsequently
dropped from Columbia after an almost 20-year association with the label.
Long
out-of-print, and the subject of no little discussion by Blue Öyster Cult fans
through the years, thanks to the good folks at American Beat we have a
reissued/remastered version of Imaginos to judge on its own merits.
Musically, the album-opening “I Am the One You Warned Me Of” spanks-and-cranks
with typical period metal overtones, with heavy riffing, clean ringing guitars
and Bloom vocals that sound eerily like Secret Treaties-era BÖC.
Slower-paced than the band’s early ‘70s brain-bashers, the song is no less
menacing. “Les Invisibles” is more contradictory, featuring some delectable,
deliberate skull-bashing fretwork and rhythms…but the constant refrain of
“seven, seven, seven” is more irritating than an itchy straitjacket, and as
unnecessary to the grand design of life as ticks and garden slugs.
“In the Presence of Another World” is a vintage BÖC face-burner,
opening with elegant six-string plundering before kicking into some sort of
sci-fi soundscape with soaring vocal harmonies and crunchy riffage courtesy of
Mr. Dharma. “Del Rio’s Song” offers up some fine lead vocals but little in the
way of substance; lacking distinctive instrumentation (or else it’s buried too
deep in the mix), it’s a pleasant diversion and nothing more. “The Siege and
Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein’s Castle At Weisseria” is as epic and
long-winded as the song’s title. Sounding like an outtake from a Ronnie James
Dio album, the song showcases Joe Satriani’s scorching six-string leads. The
song kind of grows on you, as blustery as it is, and it’s an excellent example
of early prog-metal overkill.
BÖC’s Astronomy
“Astronomy” should be familiar to any BÖC fan; originally included on
Secret Treaties, the song sits perfectly at the intersection of the
band’s science-fiction fantasies and fantastic metal proclivities. “Magna of
Illusion” has delusions of grandeur, but it also includes some nifty Robbie
Krieger guitar noodling, so I’ll begrudgingly swallow the song’s hackneyed
lyrical aspirations. “Blue Öyster Cult,” the song, bites down hard; a
re-working of the original tune “Subhuman” from Secret Treaties, which
was derived from “Blue Öyster Cult” to begin with (calling M.C. Escher), this
is one limp biscuit nonetheless.
I’ll call the title track a draw
– although it could have sorely benefited from some big-lunged Eric Bloom
vocal expertise, it kicks in with some tasty licks and keyboard riffs that
rescue it from oblivion. Bloom is absent without leave from much of
Imaginos, leaving the bulk of the vocal weightlifting to the capable
Buck Dharma. When any of the guest vocalists kick in on a song, it’s either
cringeworthy, or as slight as to be as easily forgotten as last week’s
hangover.
As stated before, Imaginos is a conceptual
song-cycle, something about a big-haired meanie that travels through time to
stomp on our hopes and dreams, or some other late ‘60s lysergic-fueled
narrative. Much like early Voivod albums, you have no idea what the hell
they’re talking about – you just sit back and try to enjoy the ride. By the
Reverend’s count, you have five bona fide BÖC gems on Imaginos, three
whiffballs, and one plea of “nolo contendre.” That’s close enough for rock ‘n’
roll in my book, and certainly a better batting average than many of today’s
pud-pounding corporate rockers.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
So, just where does Imaginos fall in the BÖC canon? With the benefit of
20 years of hindsight, I’d say that it’s certainly better than either of the
band’s two previous ‘80s-era albums, and it’s perhaps the band’s most overtly
metallicized effort, ever. In spite of all the cooks here adding their own
ingredients to the gumbo, some of that tasty BÖC flavor rises to the top
regardless. While Imaginos won’t prompt any fans to pawn their copies
of Agents of Fortune or Fires of Unknown Origin (or the classic
first three BÖC ear-mashers, either), you won’t embarrass yourself by owning a
copy, either. (Columbia Records, released July 1988)
Review originally published by the Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog…
No comments:
Post a Comment