Blue Oyster Cult - The Symbol Remains
Blue Oyster Cult
The Symbol Remains
(Frontiers)
8/10
By Decibel Report
Decades pass but good music, very good music lasts in the fibre of our very being: when we’re down it lifts us up, when we’re up it takes us higher and fires our imagination and stokes the emotions. Two decades have passed since Blue Oyster Cult released any original music; which are like treasured relics that improve with every play. In the meantime, they have toured their unparalleled back catalogue and concentrated on anniversary tours of their most eminent releases. Long consolidated with a rock-solid steady line up, they have finally returned with a brooding, heavy, melodic slab of extraordinary chiaroscuro tracks on this giant stride of an album.
As a prelude, BOC teased a couple of tracks in the run-up to this album’s release. Now assimilated into the running order, crashing straight out of the speakers, early single That Was Me opens the ears with menaces and Box In My Head follows up by implanting melodic bombs of lyrical and musical explosions directly into the brain.
Rocking the melodic vibe further, it’s the AOR anthemic pulse on Tainted Blood that takes proceedings up a notch in a sinister drive-time mode. Further subverting the FM feel, Buck Dharma’s surf twang guitar to a 4/4 time beat, accompanied with sublime harmony vocals, on Nightmare Epiphany crawls under the skin and imprints itself like an internal tattoo of conquering sonic motifs and intense guitar histrionics.
Re-calibrating their range, and curing the ears with its slow-burn atmospherics, the abduction and destruction tropes on Edge Of The World muscles in to take its rightful place as an all-time BOC classic, with an understated chorus hook launching this messing with the head storm trooping song.
No strangers to a bit of sardonic humour, a corny mobile phone ringtone dials in The Machine, another majestic melodic jewel of AOR beauty wrapped in a dark narrative. Also, no strangers to railroad similes (Hot Rails To Hell), Train True (Lennie’s Song) cuts a rockabilly rug of southern style boogie demanding to be an eventual live favourite.
There are plenty of epic moments sharply permeating TSR like a rich seam of obsidian magic. None more so than a heavy ode to the patron saint of musicians as The Return Of St. Cecilia introduces a satisfying power surge of head charging amplitude which should come with the warning: ‘playback through headphones at your own pleasurable peril’.
As though created from a deep and fathomless underground furnace, the droning slow metal riff chanting chorus of Stand And Fight finds Bloom in superb creepy voice giving a ballast of balance to its widescreen musical stylings. Of which Florida Man contrasts with a light Midas touch of that melodic songwriting quality very few bands possess as Buck Dharma takes total control on this musical selfie.
A bit of sword and sorcery fantasy has always been a welcome addition to the ‘Cult’s canon, and The Alchemist turns what could have been a base metal song in craftless hands into a thing of molten gold desirous beauty. Big riffs and a huge lungful blast of Bloom’s vocals, plus arch atmospheric keyboards, delivers a doom-laden composition of top draw musicianship from where lies the secret hidden compartment of special instrumental tricks that BOC pulls out when the whim takes hold.
Masters of delivering a solid and enchanting rock tune which takes the listener down a track less travelled, Secret Road pulls the hood down and presses the cruise control button as an alluring rocky landscape passes by as the sun starts to set on this well worth the wait album trip.
To re-affirm their startling heavy credentials, There’s A Crime and Fight shakes loose any comfort zone found on previous songs with firstly a headbanging then an ear-grabbing blast of hard rocks rolling around the cranium’s pleasure zones as this more than symbolic return ends with portentous words of ‘last one turn out the light’.
With its extra-fine blend of AOR anthems, intelligent tones of melodic rock and otherworldly epic musical adventures underpinning quality lyrical content, The Symbol Remains re-asserts BOC’s unique credentials as a singular recording entity whose premium class voyages in original entrancing sound craft triumphantly continues.