Blue Öyster Cult Albums (19)
'A Long Day's Night'
Release Date 9/24/2002
Tracks 13
Label Sanctuary
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What The Critics Say
Shortened by six songs from its accompanying video, Blue Öyster Cult's fifth live release is a rugged and often exciting trawl through their 30-year career. Featuring songs from their debut like the inescapable "Cities on Flame" and even a few tracks from works such as 2001's sadly underappreciated Curse of the Hidden Mirror, the album also serves as a reasonable career summation. Guitarist Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser's chops are in fine form, as the six-and-a-half-minute "Buck's Boogie" proves, and the band plays passionately throughout. Recorded at a single Chicago show in June of 2002, there seems to be few overdubs patching up this exuberant performance. Although only three of the original five bandmembers (Roeser, Allen Lanier, Eric Bloom) remain, there is no mistaking the sound. From dreamy to bone-crunching, Blue Öyster Cult retains a knack for melody, even on the newer tracks like Roeser's "Harvest Moon" and "Dance on Stilts." A ten-minute "Astronomy" highlights the band's sci-fi origins and never gets boring. Nor do extended versions of the set-closers "Godzilla" and "Don't Fear the Reaper." Digging deep into their catalog, they emerge with "Perfect Water" and "Lips in the Hills" (from Club Ninja and Cultosaurus Erectus, respectively), two forgotten gems that sound just fine dusted off for this concert. Excepting a few crowd-pleasing, Spinal Tap-ish moments in the closing minutes of "Cities on Flame" and the lumbering bass and drum solos in "Godzilla," Blue Öyster Cult remains one of the more enjoyable relics of a time when hard rock bands ruled the airwaves. Three decades of shows have only sharpened their attack.. ~ Hal Horowitz, All Music Guide
'The Curse of the Hidden Mirror'
Release Date 6/5/2001
Tracks 11
Label CMC International
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What The Critics Say
Long Island's favorite metal-lite purveyors continued their comeback in 2001 with this unexpectedly accomplished set of new songs. Boasting the core of the original band with Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, Eric Bloom, and Alan Lanier, Curse of the Hidden Mirror stays rooted in the group's tough yet jangly approach but ups the ante with strong material that often matches, yet doesn't quite surpass, the band's best music. A return to the stylistic triumph of Agents of Fortune and the similarly titled Mirrors, the revived quintet coalesces around sharp riff-based rockers that show a band that has matured but hasn't lost its cosmic edge. Simplistic rockers like "Here Comes That Feeling" float on a fluently melodic bed, and when they slip into ballad mode, as in "Out of the Darkness," it's done without an ounce of pretension. Even the tougher rockers like "Good to Feel Hungry" and "Stone of Love" -- the latter co-penned by R. Meltzer (who worked with them in the '80s) and one of this album's highlights, a song as good as anything they've ever written -- never slip into either stiffness or, worse, self-parody. Roeser keeps his solos on low burn, never overstaying his welcome, and vocalist Bloom doesn't force his still-smooth voice, belying his age (early fifties) and veteran status. The opening tuneful rocker "Dance on Stilts" could easily fit on either one of the group's classic first four studio albums, as could the appropriately titled "One Step Ahead of the Devil," which is a high compliment indeed. In fact, except for a few slips on the simplistic "I Just Want to Be Bad," a track that's as bland as it sounds, Curse of the Hidden Mirror is a remarkably consistent, subtle, and even poetic album that expands their sci-fi undercurrents without getting lost in space. It's far better than some of the group's limp late-'80s work and stands as one of the finest albums of their nearly three decade -- and counting -- career of evil. ~ Hal Horowitz, All Music Guide
'Heaven Forbid'
Release Date 3/24/1998
Tracks 11
Label CMC International
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What The Critics Say
Blue Oyster Cult was for the most part a touring band, and this European import, released 15 years after the concert it chronicled, shows them at their 1970s touring peak. At the end of 1976, they were touring behind their most successful album, Agents of Fortune, and single, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." They played only ten songs, including their recent hit, old favorites like "Stairway to the Stars" and "Cities on Flame," and their in-concert barnburner "Born To Be Wild," but it took them over 78 minutes to do so, in part because of a version of "This Ain't the Summer of Love" that ran nearly 13 minutes and a "Buck's Boogie" that ran over 19 minutes, many of them given over to a good old-fashioned 1970s drum solo. That and the speech about legalizing marijuana have a touch of nostalgic indulgence, of course, but much of the music is blazing guitar rock, and a listen helps explain why the Cult was so loved by its concert fans, even as it was virtually ignored by the music industry and the country in general. Sound quality is good, but rudimentary; the album sounds more like a soundboard tape than a conventionally mixed and EQ'd commercial album. Crank it up, though, and you just might like it better. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
"Music composed and performed by Blue Öyster Cult," reads the credit for this soundtrack, and that turns out to mean two actual BÖC songs, 19 instrumental excerpts, the longest of which is under two-and-a-half-minutes, and nine songs by otherwise anonymous heavy metal groups. There's a lot of music here -- the disc runs over 71 minutes -- but little of it is memorable. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Blue Öyster Cult went out with a bang as a major-label recording act on their 14th and last new Columbia album, Imaginos. The idea for this concept album came as early as Secret Treaties, on which some of its music appeared, and the recording took place over a six-year period. (As a result, album credits give the erroneous impression that the original band had reformed.) The story line, which is easier to appreciate in the liner notes than on the record, concerns a mysterious, protean 19th century figure who has a talent for turning up at key moments in history and influencing them for the worse. This is perhaps BÖC's most consistent album, certainly its most uncompromising (none of its usual nods to pop accessibility), and also the closest thing to a real heavy-metal statement from a band that never quite fit that description. Unfortunately, this ambitious work came out as BÖC was dropping out of the frontline of the music business, so the album that comes closest to defining Blue Öyster Cult turned into its creative swan song. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Blue Öyster Cult's gradual disintegration continued with Club Ninja, on which original member Allen Lanier was replaced by keyboard player Tom Zvoncheck, and several compositions from outside the band were featured, notably the Leggat Brothers' "White Flags," and a couple of metal exercises by Bob Halligan, who had contributed much the same sort of material to Judas Priest. Sandy Pearlman was back in the producer's chair. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'The Revolution by Night'
Release Date 1/1/1983
Tracks 9
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
Blue Öyster Cult seemed to regain their direction with Fire of Unknown Origin, but simultaneously, the band was starting to fragment, with founding member and notable songwriter Albert Bouchard departing. On The Revolution by Night, BÖC brought in various hired guns, such as Aldo Nova and former Alice Cooper bandmember Neal Smith, and turned to Loverboy's producer, Bruce Fairbairn, who gave them a similar radio-ready rock sound. Although The Revolution by Night lacked a distinctive identity, the album brought BÖC their fourth (and final) singles chart entry in "Shooting Shark." ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Extraterrestrial Live'
Release Date 1/1/1982
Tracks 13
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
Of Blue Öyster Cult's three live albums, Extraterrestrial Live is the one to own. The two-record set, partially recorded on BÖC's home base of Long Island, contains the band's biggest hits, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (making its second live appearance) and "Burnin' for You," as well as longtime concert favorites like "Cities on Flame," "The Red and the Black," and "Godzilla." But it isn't just the superior song selection that gives this album the nod over On Your Feet or on Your Knees and Some Enchanted Evening; BÖC had regained its momentum in 1981 with Fire of Unknown Origin, and this album demonstrated their renewed spirit in the forum in which they were most comfortable -- live work. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Fire of Unknown Origin'
Release Date 1/1/1981
Tracks 9
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
Who would have thought that in 1981, after a pair of limp, unfocused studio offerings, and two mixed -- at best -- live outings, that the once mighty Blue Öyster Cult would come back with such a fierce, creative, and uncompromising effort as Fire of Unknown Origin. Here was their finest moment since Agents of Fortune five years earlier, and one of their finest ever. Bringing back into the fold the faithful team who helped articulate their earlier vision, producer Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer, and Patti Smith all helped in the lyric department, as did science-fiction and dark-fantasy writer Michael Moorcock. The band's sound was augmented by a plethora of keyboards courtesy of Allen Lanier, but nonetheless retained a modicum of its heaviness, and the sheer songwriting craft that had helped separate the band form its peers early on was everywhere evident here -- especially the gloriously noir-ish Top 40 single "Burning for You," written by Meltzer and guitarist Buck Dharma. Other standouts on the set include the plodding, über-riff pyrotechnics of "Heavy Metal: The Black and the Silver," and the Mott the Hoople- and Queen-influenced glammed up roots rock of "Joan Crawford." The terrifying images of desecration and apocalyptic war in "Veteran of Psychic Wars," with words by Moorcock, feature huge synth lines, dual leads by Dharma and Eric Bloom -- as well as a tom-tom orgy from Albert Bouchard -- offered a new pathway through the eternal night of the Cult's best work. Fire of Unknown Origin has aged well, and deserves to be remastered in the 21st century. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
