Critics have always called Rush the thinking man’s heavy metal band. Maybe this is true... but there’s another heavy rock band who demanded their listeners think about their lyrics before Geddy Lee and crew hit the big time with “Working Man.”
That band is Blue Oyster Cult. Eric Bloom and crew crafted songs about deep, dark subjects like Altamont, alleged drug use and murder, often hidden inside cryptic lyrics and Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser’s prominent guitar work.
Their self-titled debut from 1972 is not always the easiest to comprehend, but is very solid musically, and established Blue Oyster Cult as a rock band with a harder edge. One would be challenged to call them “hard rock,” but Roeser, Bloom and Allen Lanier’s guitar work help make some form of a case to do so.
Production-wise, this album is a bit muddy. I’d have preferred to have heard crisper guitars, drums and vocals... but there is a slightly sinister edge to David Lucas’s production work, in that you occasionally hear instruments like Albert Bouchard’s drums have a ghost effect that echoes through a song. I don’t know if that was intentional, but the truth is, it works.
As for the songs themselves? Well, how does one explain a song titled “She’s As Beautiful As A Foot”? Or “I’m On The Lamb But I Ain’t No Sheep”? Yes, there are stories layered into the lyrics of these tracks, but they’re not always the easiest to uncover, much less decipher. In a sense, this is something that attracted people to Blue Oyster Cult, I guess; you were left to your own devices to determine what the messages in certain songs were.
Thing is, this all wouldn’t matter a tinker’s damn if the musicianship wasn’t good. Fortunately, it is. Tracks like “Then Came The Last Days Of May,” “Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll” and “Before The Kiss, A Redcap” all have a solid rhythmic backbone that keeps the listener intrigued and their feet tapping. Granted, this wasn’t material that was going to top the Billboard Hot 100, but was rather rock music for art’s sake. Thankfully, it was art that was well written and performed.
Blue Oyster Cult is not an album you’re necessarily going to get a firm grasp on with just one cursory listen... or two. However, the music is so well written and performed that you won’t mind spending some quality time with this album, which turned out to be a solid first effort from the band.