Curse Of The Hidden Mirror - Blue Oyster Cult

Secret Treaties - Blue Oyster Cult

Blue Öyster Cult s third album Secret Treaties has been called a progressive rock masterpiece and an early heavy metal classic, and although it deserves these accolades to some extent, it s more of a slightly diluted middle-ground between the two. It s certainly an improvement over the somewhat muddled Tyranny and Mutation, and the most creative album they would produce for some time after, and once again Buck Dharma leads the way with his inspired guitar playing. There s a perfect balance maintained here between heaviness and melody, often within the same song, even if the "heaviness" is strictly in an early seventies sense, making songs like Subhuman ...

Spectres - Blue Oyster Cult

Following the success of their more pop-oriented Agents of Fortune, Blue Öyster Cult understandably furthered this style with the even blander Spectres, much to the chagrin of old-time fans but clearly the right career move at the time, from a purely financial perspective. The songs here are even softer than those on the previous year s release, and to make things more insulting, there are even a couple of anthems to rock - most notably the text-message-prophesying R.U. Ready 2 Rock - that couldn t sound less like an authentic rock song if they tried, complete with soft unison singing, an almost complete lack of guitars, and clichéd piano playing that I d be tempted ...

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 ...