Mirrors - Blue Oyster Cult

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...