BOC: Any Old Way They Choose It
After last year's virtually unredeemable double live LP set, On Your Feet or On Your Knees, it seemed that the Blue Oyster Cult had reached the point where all they were doing was beating a dead Jew Live albums by moderately successful bands striving to be highly successful ones are often a good ploy (we refer you to Kiss, Peter Frampton etc., probably Aerosmith soon —though it'll only be icing on the cake for them), but it doesn't always work out.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
BOC: Any Old Way They Choose It
Billy Altman
by
BLUE OYSTER CULT Agents of Fortune (Columbia)
After last year's virtually unredeemable double live LP set, On Your Feet or On Your Knees, it seemed that the Blue Oyster Cult had reached the point where all they were doing was beating a dead Jew Live albums by moderately successful bands striving to be highly successful ones are often a good ploy (we refer you to Kiss, Peter Frampton etc., probably Aerosmith soon —though it'll only be icing on the cake for them), but it doesn't always work out. Since the Cult had, by Secret Treaties, almost totally divorced themselves from their original conception as spelled out on their debut LP, this occurring mostly via Tyranny and Mutation, where they waxed monolithic to try and become the only heavy band on the planet with some intentional sense of overriding intelligence, the only excuse for the live album was to bring those as yet uninitiated with the band's material around in one fell swoop. But that really didn't, happen to any significant extent, so here was a group who'd started out with any direction viable but chose to follow only one fork of their eclectic roads. And they damned near ruined themselves in the process—too many bombing missions oyer already devastated territory.
What obviously happened in the last year is that Blue Oyster Cult took a fairly hard look at itself and Agents of Fortune, the result of the meeting in the huddle,is almost like a second first alburn. There is no juggernaut cornin' down the block to bulldoze you into submission. Instead it's five guys in a band that is killer on quite a few different levels. If the sound is a bit disjointed from track to track (the only real anchors here are Eric Bloom's wolf in wolf s clothing voice and Buck Dharma's dynamic tension guitar breaks), it's because there are actually personalities showing through, and yes, even traces of humanity. (Die-hards need not be alarmed though; there's still plenty of death and destruction abounding lyrically—it's just that instead of World War II and outer space, the tendency is towards more contemporary and relatable settings.)
So that 'Summer of Love,' penned by BOC producer Murray Krugman, ('This ain't the Garden of Eden/there ain't no angels above/ and things ain't what they used to be --and this ain't the summer of love'), functions right at the start of the album as the ultimate selfparody, an AM, hummable 'Transmaniacon MC.' It's followed im mediatley by 'True confessions,' written and sung by Alan (or Allan or Allen, depending on which album jacket you Relieve) Lanier and what strikes you most is not that it sounds very different from anything you've heard from the band before, what with its straight ahead raunchy rock 'n' roll no frills approach, (pumpin' piano, dynamite rhythm guitar, even a sax) but the fact that it's a goddamn great song. Neat Stonesy vocal by A. and it's his first lead singing/assignment ever with the band, which means we've been missing a lot and we better get more.
As if 'True Confessions' isn't left fieldish enough, Buck Dharma's 'Don'tFearthe Reaper,' a solid bite of late '60s Angloid via JByrds harmonies grafted onto musing re thb philosophy of death, complete with spectacular storm after calm guitar frenzy, carries things even more upwards and outwards. 'ETI,' with Eric singing, brings things back to familiar unfriendly skies and the side closes with an aquatic boogie shuffle called 'The Revenge of Vera Gemini,' as Albert Bouchard and guest star Patti Smith battle for speaker control in a sump outside Amityville, L.I.
Side two is highlighted by new lyric contributor Helen Robbins' two gems^the murky 'Sinful Love' and the bone sawing 'Tattoo Vampire' Eric chips in with a fine performance on Lanier's 'Tenderloin,' and the record ends with Patti's 'Debbie Denise,' an actual ballad with Albert falsettoing it up beautifully. Agents of Fortune is as good as it was unexpected and while it may not be the best record Blue Oyster Cult has ever done, still, coming as it does at such a critical point in the band's lifespan, it may be their most important one.
