Refreshed

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT
Blue Öyster Cult (Columbia/Legacy)
Tyranny and Mutation (Columbia/Legacy)
Secret Treaties (Columbia/Legacy)
Agents of Fortune (Columbia/Legacy)
It's easy to underestimate Blue Öyster Cult. Like many great bands from the 70s, BÖC shifted with the winds of commercial fortune when the 80s hit, mutating from a quirky heavy rock quintet into what's essentially a talented but predictable pop metal trio with a rotating rhythm section. It may be hard to fathom watching the band grind out their AOR hits on the stage at some state fair in Middle America, but BÖC was once a musical force of surprising creativity and awesome potency.

After a couple of years under the names Soft White Underbelly and Stalk-Forrest Group, the quintet that became the Cult solidified in 1971 with the lineup of singer/guitarists Eric Bloom and Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, drummer/singer Albert Bouchard, his bassist brother Joe and keyboardist/guitarist Allen Lanier. Armed with their collective skill at composing memorable riffs and sophisticated melodies and the whacked-out lyrics of their manager Sandy Pearlman and critic Richard Meltzer, BÖC released a spate of now-classic albums that freely mixed bludgeoning boogie, psychedelic melody, horrific imagery and a satirical sense of humor. This set of remastered reissues shows the band at its sinister best.

The self-titled debut, released in 1972, lays out the battle plan. "With Satan's hog no pig at all/And the weather's getting dry," Bloom growls over a dramatic rock riff in the opening "Transmaniacon MC, "We'll head south for Altamont/In a cold-blood traveled trance." Clearly this band will not be recycling what had already become 60s hippie clichés. Lyricist Pearlman draws inspiration from the conspiratorial novels of Robert Anton Wilson and the counter-culture satire of Terry Southern, and songs like "I'm On the Lamb, But I Ain't No Sheep" (a strange tribute to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and "Before the Kiss, a Redcap" (which describes the drug-taking habits of barflies) will inspire as many chuckles as headbanging. Meltzer's more stream-of-consciousness approach manifests itself in "She's as Beautiful as a Foot" and "Stairway to the Stars." Bloom delivers his lines with menacing conviction, and the band backs him with a graceful power few hard rockers can touch, even today. Roeser in particular shines, establishing his distinctive guitar style with memorable riffs, soaring leads and plain old crunch—his fretwork is equal parts Wayne Kramer, Jimmy Page and Roger McGuinn. BÖC also introduces the first of his atmospheric pop songs, the drug-deal-gone-wrong tale "Then Came the Last Days of May." The most infamous tune is "Cities On Flame With Rock and Roll," which celebrates the rock anthem even as it parodies such gestures ("My ears will bleed/And then my eyes"). Joined by four formative but promising bonus tracks from the Underbelly days, Blue Öyster Cult is a certified classic debut.

After that triumph, it was a matter of refinement. Written quickly as the group hit the road while being hailed as "the American Black Sabbath," 1973's Tyranny and Mutation takes the elements developed on the first album and intensifies them. The riffs are louder and more obnoxious, Bloom's voice nastier, the lyrics weirder (some might say goofier). The mix is crystal clear, capturing every yelp and power chord in perfect clarity. In case previous listeners misunderstood the band's tongue-in-cheek approach, the deliberately over-the-top anthems "Hot Rails to Hell" and "O.D.'d on Life Itself" should clue them in. Even odder are the epic "7 Screaming Diz-Busters" (just what the heck is a diz-buster?), "Baby Ice Dog," with lyrics by budding poet Patti Smith, and the mysterious but catchy "Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)." Most prominent, though, is the barnstorming opening track, "The Red and the Black," which takes the lyrics of "I'm On the Lamb" and marries them to a rock anthem so monumental and hip it was covered twice by postpunk icon Mike Watt (once with the Minutemen, once with fIREHOSE). The bonus tracks are three live cuts, including an interminably long version of "7 Screaming Diz-Busters" from which Glenn Danzig seems to have picked up his vocal personality, and a studio version of the live favorite "Buck's Boogie." Sophomore slump was obviously a foreign concept to BÖC, as Tyranny and Mutation is as strong as its predecessor.

The band doesn't do anything radically different on 1974's Secret Treaties; they just do what they do better than they ever have before. This is the band's most consistent LP, as the songwriting reaches a zenith unmatched in the hard rock arena by anyone except for Motörhead. The record is loaded with Cult classics, including the sneering statement of purpose "Career of Evil" (with more lyrics by Smith), the unsettling, call-and-response stomper "Dominance and Submission," the enigmatic anthem "Flaming Telepaths" ("And the joke's on you," sings Bloom repeatedly—a message to a humorless metal audience, perhaps?) and the sophisticated epic "Astronomy." Amazingly, though, the lesser-known tracks are just as good, especially the creepy "Harvester of Eyes" (another tune that must've had an impact on a young Danzig) and the rollicking "ME 262," which would qualify as a Rolling Stones cop if the lyrics weren't about a German bomber. To top things off, the three outtakes from the album sessions included as bonus tracks are just as strong as the official cuts, especially the goofy proto-slasher roots rock of "Mommy." Originally released as a single, the band's cover of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" adds nothing to the original but is nice enough. Secret Treaties is a career highlight for the Cult.

Having taken its original sound to its apex, the only thing left for the band to do was experiment. The results of its explorations are found on 1976's Agents of Fortune, the group's most varied and popular album. The diversity makes itself plain with the first two tracks. "This Ain't the Summer of Love" comes roaring out of the silo like the turbocharged middle finger it is, while "True Confessions" treads the same pop/R&B terrain as the Stones' better ballads, complete with a Jaggeresque vocal from writer Lanier. Albert Bouchard is particularly forceful on this record. He co-wrote the rockers "Sinful Love" and "Tattoo Vampire" with NYC scenester Helen Robbins (AKA Helen Wheels), and penned the epic "The Revenge of Vera Gemini" and the tender "Debbie Denise" with Patti Smith, singing them all as well. Lanier's grooving synth-rocker "Tenderloin" and Roeser's gnarly "E.T.I. (Extraterrestrial Intelligence)" are also mighty fine. But let's face it, this album is owned by its hit single, Roeser's "Don't Fear the Reaper." Despite having been a standard on rock radio and film soundtracks for 25 years, the magnificent gothic folk-rocker hasn't lost an ounce of its luster. Also included here is the original four-track demo of "Reaper" (the "no cowbell" version, quips the liner note), which provides a fascinating glimpse of the evolution of a classic. The other bonus tracks are preproduction demos, including an early take of "Fire of Unknown Origin," which would resurface five years later as a title track, and "Dance the Night Away," a collaboration between Lanier and Jim Carroll that the punk poet would later record. Though not quite the stone classic that Secret Treaties is (credit ostensible frontman Bloom's minimal involvement), Agents of Fortune is still one of the Cult's best releases.

By the mid-80s, composer/theorist Albert Bouchard was gone, a loss from which the band has arguably never fully recovered. While the Cult has always been capable of coming up with a classic tune or two per record, they've been pretty much creatively spent since. Now they travel the classic rock cabaret circuit, but these monumental reissues will keep Blue Öyster Cult's fires of unknown origin burning. Michael Toland

For fans of: Monster Magnet, Danzig, the Pink Fairies