Blue Oyster Cult

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Absorbing an encyclopedic repertoire of sonic graffiti (rock and roll, swing, beat, blues-rock, psychedelia, hard rock, decadence, Southern boogie, honky-tonk), Blue Oyster Cult, an outgrowth of New York’s decadent circles (embodied by journalist Sandy Pearlman, their creator, producer, and composer), became the standard-bearers of 1970s heavy metal—less urban but more imaginative. Like the leaders of hard rock, Led Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult gradually refined their sound, losing some of its raw edge, but for them, it was not folk or mysticism that provided deviant inspiration; rather, it was the spirit world and satanic rituals. Within the heavy metal movement, B.O.C. were among the first to experiment with the genre’s surface-level riffs, and it was not so much the somewhat gaudy esoteric symbolism—fit for a grand seance master—as the chills-inducing atmospheres worthy of B-movie American cinema. B.O.C.’s grand guignol also had the significant merit of keeping the banner of evil flying during the transitional period between 1969 and 1976, when such pirate-like figures had nearly vanished. Blue Oyster Cult formed in 1971 around singer Eric Bloom, keyboardist Allen Lanier, and guitarist Donald Rooser (“Buck Dharma”), rising from the ashes of the Stalk-Forrest Group, whose posthumous St Cecilia (Fanclub, 1998) was released; that band itself had emerged from the ashes of Soft White Underbelly (formed in 1969). Their early period, up to 1974, is marked by heavy metal tinged with macabre-demonic visions, an exemplary manifesto of the fusion between “dark” and “heavy” styles, as well as a lucid treatise on the aesthetics of evil.

On the album Blue Öyster Cult (Columbia, Jan 1972), the petulant incandescence of the guitars (especially Dharma’s multi-layered work), the muted jazz-inflected boogie of the keyboards, and the Luciferian tone of Bloom’s voice are the defining traits of the technocratic psychedelia coloring the tracks. The songs themselves are mostly faded reworkings of Cream-style blues-rock (I'm On The Lamb, Before The Kiss A Red Cap), elegiac folk ballads (the evocative Last Days Of May, one of their purest melodies), country-rock (Redeemed), Deep Purple-style hard-boogie (Stairway To The Stars), and swaggering Who-style rock and roll (Transmaniac Me and Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll, their first 45 rpm single). Tyranny And Mutation (Feb 1973), boasting a decidedly more powerful and aggressive sound, launches into flurries of metal and uncontrollable epileptic bursts—from the acrobatic rock and roll of The Red And The Black, where twenty years of wild dances from ballroom swing to the Coasters’ doo-wop converge, to the tribal dark-rock of Hot Rails To Hell (one of the cornerstones of demonic rock), from the hypnotic blues-rock Seven Screaming Dizbuster to the morbid ballad Wings Wetted Down. Although it is intuitive that their sound is a mosaic of riffs, choruses, rhythms, and well-known solos, the sources are fully absorbed into a wholly personal vehemence and frenzy. Secret Treaties (Apr 1974) reflects the fruits of their maturation: their performances become more macabre and theatrical, stretching and slowing the sound into a fluid guitar boogie enveloped in noir atmospheres (Career Of Evil, Subhuman); the grittiest, roaring horror stories, torn apart by Dharma’s claw-like solos (Harvester Of Eyes and especially ME 262), recall the syncopated bacchanals of the Stones; the choruses and beat-style backing vocals of Flaming Telepaths and the hard rock ballad Astronomy testify to the quintet’s compositional and performative eclecticism. Their “black” heavy sound has now taken on quasi-Nazi overtones, exaggerating provocation and the glorification of Evil.

The second period, from 1975 to 1978, when all their albums went gold or platinum and stadiums filled with massive crowds, is marked by a less raw soft-hard style, with more complex arrangements and melodic textures: Return Of Vera Gemini and the almost folk-rock hit Don't Fear The Reaper on Agents of Fortune (May 1976); the gothic-chill anthems Death Valley Nights, I Love The Night, Nosferatu; and the more metallic RU Ready 2 Rock and especially Godzilla on Spectres (Columbia, Oct 1977); as well as Dr Music on Mirrors (Columbia, Jun 1979), all of which gave the band a more musical and less theatrical image. Mirrors was the first album not produced by Pearlman. In the third phase, the dark and horror mythology becomes louder, bordering on self-parody. Under the banner of “black Sabbath,” B.O.C. continue their saga of damnation and atrocities, with one eye on the shadows of German Expressionism and the other on monsters from horror cinema. Lanier’s keyboards shape the new futuristic heavy metal of Black Blade and Monsters on Cultosaurus Erectus (Columbia, Jun 1980), and Veterans Of Psychic Wars on Fire of Unknown Origin (Columbia, 1981), complex and intricate compositions, along with the last gothic classic, Joan Crawford (on the same album). At the end, there would be lighter songs like Burning For You (same album), Take Me Away on The Revolution by Night (Columbia, 1983), and Dancing In The Ruins on Club Ninja (Koch, 1986).

The concept Imaginos (Columbia, 1988), the soundtrack Bad Channels (Moonstone, 1992), Heaven Forbid (CMC, 1998) and The Curse of the Hidden Mirror (CMC, 2001) continued the saga amid numerous line-up changes.

Lanier died in 2013. Pearlman died in 2016.

The Symbol Remains (Frontier, 2020) was recorded by Eric Bloom, Buch Dharma, Richie Castellano and Danny Miranda.