Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: April 12, 2024
Production: Steve Schenck & Richie Castellano
Album length: 41.46 min
Genre: Art Rock / Hard Rock / Heavy Metal
Rating: 8.0/10
Blue Öyster Cult really are one of the most influential rock bands. Of all time. Even though these great innovators and pioneers got left in the shadow of the bigger media buzz around the likes of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, who were ‘pushing to the front’ more successfully at the same time as Blue Öyster Cult (way back then), today their musical contribution, as well as their legacy itself, is practically sacred. The holy grail of inspiration for the generation that, a decade after them, put metal on the map, subgenres and all.
The years roll in. Including those years of ‘sweet memories’ and years ripe for celebrations. Even after, almost twenty years on, a brand new and very good studio album drops, along with a whole galaxy of new live albums. Now, »Ghost Stories«, which likes to bill itself as the band’s 15th studio album, isn’t quite a proper studio album. It’s more a collection of creations that sat in the archives for years, written between 1978 and 1983, in the hope of seeing daylight someday. So hope never died, and here’s the realization. This archival material was written by the band’s classic lineup (Bloom, Roeser, Albert Bouchard, Joe Bouchard and the late Allen Lanier) and covers the era of the albums »Mirrors«, »Cultosaurus Erectus«, »Fire of Unknown Origin« and »The Revolution by Night«. So what the aptly named »Ghost Stories« offers is really more of a collection, a compilation, of old recordings with refreshed sound and finished arrangements. Ever since the exceptional multi-instrumentalist (and extra vocalist, producer and arranger when needed) Richie Castellano joined the Blue Öyster Cult ranks, everything seems possible again for a band still held up by two integral figures, singers and guitarists Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma. In the autumn of their lives, the legends are enjoying a renaissance, a new bloom! And Castellano is the catalyst. Putting out this compilation is actually a more than sensible move, one that not only keeps you ‘kicking’ in the autumn of your life, but also gives the audience one more undiscovered chunk of the galactic rock’n’roll monolith, one that would’ve been a shame to leave buried. Especially at a time when both Dharma and Bloom (both still alive) could step in as the chief supervisors before release.
A few tracks have been updated with great skill and are practically kicking up dust. They could easily have been included on any of the albums listed above. The songwriting style blasts us straight back to that exact period of the band’s life. Castellano didn’t overdo the modern post-production tricks, with no excessive studio ‘scrubbing’, overdubbing or, God forbid, click tracks. Bloom and Dharma would probably have nailed him to the cross if he’d wandered into the maneuvers of studio ‘sterilization’ of the sound. Castellano, who skillfully covered up the ‘holes in the demo originals’ with extra guitars, keyboards and his own vocals where needed, did his best to keep the authentic sound and the primary skeletons of the demo recordings as intact as possible. Late Night Street Fight, So Supernatural and Don’t Come Running to Me work pop elements into the band’s sound, at a time when the band was taking more care not to be passed over by the charts. It’s not hard to imagine these three tracks on the albums mentioned earlier. The rest of the material, though, which is closer to the mid-seventies philosophy, is an undeniably unique imprint of the band’s life in the 1978-1983 era.
The band also had both live favorites in mind. Those two notorious covers are, in a way, the starting points the young Blue Öyster Cult drew inspiration from, gradually pouring their energetic charge, mischief, noise, unruliness and taboo-breaking into their own musical dossier. Kick Out The Jams (MC5) and We Gotta Get Out Of This Place (Animals) have finally gotten proper studio versions. The band (in the classic lineup) recorded them in the studio like a live performance. Just like the rest of the material. As it should be. There’s one more interesting track that wasn’t strictly required for »Ghost Stories«, tacked on right at the tail end of the album: an acoustic version of the The Beatles original If I Fell, recorded by Blue Öyster Cult in the 2016 lineup, when Kasim Sutton was on bass. The Beatles have always been a hugely important inspiration for Blue Öyster Cult! And the cheeky rock’n’roll single Cherry shows that both Blue Öyster Cult and The Beatles started out with Presley and Blue Suede Shoes.
»Ghost Stories« definitely makes no sense to compare with the band’s released studio classics, even though it can also be treated as a studio album, just one with material that can hardly get close to the classics. But across the board it delivers more than satisfying quality and, as a result, a thoroughly credible addition to the discography, with the finally found (lost) treasure making for a more than welcome complement to the music collection of every true fan of these giants of rock and roll.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Late Night Street Fight
2. Cherry
3. So Supernatural
4. We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
5. Soul Jive
6. Gun
7. Shot In The Dark
8. The Only Thing
9. Kick Out The Jams
10. Money Machine
11. Don’t Come Running To Me
12. If I Feel
Lineup:
Eric Bloom – guitar, keyboards, vocals
Albert Bouchard – drums, backing vocals
Joe Bouchard – bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, percussion, backing vocals
Allen Lanier – guitar, keyboards
Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser – guitar, vocals
Rick Downey – drums on tracks 3 and 11
Richie Castellano – additional guitars, keyboards, vocals
If I Fell was recorded on April 18, 2016 at Red Studio (Los Angeles, California) with the lineup:
Eric Bloom – vocals
Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser – guitar, vocals
Richie Castellano – guitar, backing vocals
Kasim Sulton – bass guitar, vocals
Jules Radino – percussion
