THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS
Ghost Stories FRONTIERS
Hard-rock mavericks take a trip back in time with AI-enhanced odds ’n’ sods album.
At their peak, Blue Öyster Cult embodied the earthy and the enigmatic simultaneously. Their ability to switch between choogling bar-room boogie and weird, mystical heavy rock hymns was unmatched. The streak of strangeness that surrounded them was amplified by the coterie of journalists, authors and outside songwriters they enlisted to help realise their vision; everyone from sci-fi nabob Michael Moorcock to Patti Smith has been involved at one point or another.
Conceptually, Ghost Stories, their fifteenth album, leans into their maverick side. It’s ‘new’ only in the sense that its 12 songs have never been heard before in this form. They’re mostly long-forgotten out-takes dating from recording sessions between 1978 and 1983, fished out from down the back of the sofa of history by charter members Eric Bloom and Donald ‘Buck Dharma’ Roeser. Any missing parts have been fleshed out by AI and, more touchingly, original rhythm section Joe and Albert Bouchard, as well as late keyboard player Allen Lanier.
The origin story is more unusual than the music, although a few lost gems have been unearthed. Cherry is a Chuck Berry-indebted rock’n’roll romp with a killer ‘Whoah-oh’ chorus, Supernatural is as strange and spooky as its title, while the excellent Shot In The Dark begins as a supper-club jazz pastiche, complete with gumshoe-style spoken-word intro, before twisting into a sparkling early-80s rocker.
What the album lacks is a sense of cohesion, which is understandable given its mix-and-match origins. Worse, some of these songs should have stayed lost. Presumably the plodding Soul Jive and the strained Money Machine were left off their respective albums for a reason, while route-one covers of The Animals’ We Gotta Get Out Of This Place and the MC5’s Kick Out The Jams (long a BÖC live favourite, making its debut as a studio track here), plus a lo-fi, campfire version of The Beatles’ If I Fell, add little to the BÖC myth.
Ghost Stories is being trailed as the band’s farewell albumunsurprising given that Bloom and Roeser are 79 and 76 respectively. That lends it a weight it doesn’t necessarily deserve, although at this stage any new Blue Öyster Cult music is better than no new Blue Öyster Cult music, even if the definition of ‘new’ is elastic. Ultimately, Ghost Stories is a long way from essential, even as a history lesson, but neither does it disgrace their illustrious name.
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Eels
E WORKS/PLAY IT AGAIN SAM
Fifteenth studio album, featuring collaborations from Koool G Murder, The Chet, Tyson Ritter among others.
There’s a sense of post-pandemic aftermath about Eels Time! – Time, the opener, was the groups
