Blue Oyster Cult - Blue Oyster Cult

Blue Öyster Cult s first album is more raw and primitive than its successors, but remains a notable entry into the early heavy metal/hard rock canon with its American slant on bands such as Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, bands whose styles are quoted in songs like Stairway to the Stars and Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll respectively. With less keyboard presence than their later, more acclaimed and eventually more commercial albums, this is that little bit darker and more satisfying to hard rock fans who perhaps found the band s later progressive tendencies a bit too much to stomach. That s not to say that this is overly simplistic and lacking in grand ideas, its ...

Tyranny And Mutation - Blue Oyster Cult

Tyranny and Mutation sees New York rock band Blue Öyster Cult s progressive tendencies starting to break through to the surface, though it s still essentially a hard rock album at heart, with traces of what would ultimately come to be defined as heavy metal. Buck Dharma s guitar is mostly based in a blues-rock sound that can get a little repetitive and serves to date this more than the works of other bands of the time such as Black Sabbath, but his playing style is still sufficiently varied across this release to keep things interesting, particularly considering the album seems to have been consciously divided into opposing "red" and "black" sides ...

Agents Of Fortune - Blue Oyster Cult

Agents of Fortune represents the most obvious point at which Blue Öyster Cult "sold out," though in essence their music had possessed a distinct commercial edge right from the onset, preventing them from ever truly being an underground band. Following the success of their more progressively-minded Secret Treaties, it s clear that a decision was made regarding stripping the band s sound of its more obtuse elements (aww) and focusing on songs that would possess greater mainstream appeal, a career move that obviously worked considering the subsequent chart success of (Don t Fear) The Reaper that saw this soft, catchy and ultimately tedious song reaching ...