Blue Oyster Cult: new album - "The Symbol Remains" due 9th October 2020

It was probably even less people. The place was pretty empty. Guess folks had better things to do with their New Year's than see BÖC. Their loss. Raising our glasses of beer/champagne on high doing a countdown to midnight led by Eric & the band was pretty cool. I 4get but we probably sung Auld Lang Syne too (I think I have a recording of that show still around somewhere, probably on DAT, can't recall). Ironically about 10-15 years prior to that they played a New Years' show at the Tower Theater, which at the time would have been the smallest place I would have seen them (holds about 3000 and I think it sold out?). I wanted to go, I think tix were like $100 and asked a girl I was chasing at work if she wanted to spend New Year's with me & BÖC, but she turned me down...sigh...

 

Totally agree. I am still iffy on if the new album is as good as Curse of the Hidden Mirror, which had it moments, but still sits near the bottom of my BOC rankings. But it doesn't touch Heaven Forbid, which is a top 5 BOC album overall in my book. Any fan who hasn't heard Heaven Forbid is missing out big time.

 

Heaven Forbid is a very, very strong album. Few songs on it are absolutely perfect. And The Harvest Moon is in my TOP-5 BOC songs!

 

I don't think you're wrong or harsh in your opinion of "Re-Imaginos", Albert's take(re-take) on it isn't for everyone's liking and the album itself isn't well received by other fans in some instances as well.

 

Yeah, superb song - needs to be in the "stays in the setlist forever even if we get sick of it" category like say Reaper or Godzilla. X-Ray Eyes is my fave though, simply because Buck's geetar is so out of control on that one. The whole album is very guitar-centric with Buck's stamp all over it. Might have more Buck lead playing than any other Cult album (?).

Btw I just listened to the new LIVE IN LONDON 45th ANNIVERSARY CD in the car about 4 times in a row. This is the show where they play the entire first album, plus a couple extra songs that are also great (recorded in London in 2016). This show is an absolutely essential live set for any big (or small) Cult fan. And saying that I have not even watched the DVD (and may never get around to it), have no idea what quality of video it is. Man the version of Last Days of May might be my fave ever - Richie tears up the first solo then Buck takes the second (I remember while Allen was still alive he would take the first solo on his telecaster, followed by Buck, but Richie really nails his spot). Listening to this, even driving in the car, I find myself standing up and giving the guys a standing ovation....

Anyways if you don't have this release you need it!!!





Richie's solo starts about 2:15, then Buck somehow follows that with his own magic at about 5:30...


These are truly great days to be a BÖC fan - they get signed to a real label that loves hard rock and what they do, release a new album, reissues of some out of print later classics like Heaven Forbid, and a bunch of new live CDs/DVDs all coming out every few months of each other. Eff COVID! Listen to some new BÖC!!!!

 

Agree, the 45th exceeded my wildest expectations. It’s brilliant.

 

HOLY CRAP!!!

After writing that I had the urge to listen to that show again but didn't feel like going out to the car to get the CD. Hmmm. Good opportunity to check out the DVD, how's it look etc?

It's a really great quality digital shoot with multiple cameras including (I guess) a crane that zooms around in various ways, but not with head spinning headache inducing quick cuts. It's done really well as far as giving us different stage shots, closeups from various angles etc, all with great sound. I don't even have a 5.1 surround setup but for you surround lovers this is 5.1.

But here is the HOLY CRAP part. During the beginning of Richie's jaw dropping solo above, he BREAKS his high E string, yet just plays on and on anyways. And after his solo wraps & he takes a few steps back from the front of the stage, with the song still ongoing, Buck ambles over b4 he starts his own solo & takes Richie's dangling broken string in a free hand and makes sure the crowd knows that this guy just did a mind blowing solo on only 5 instead of 6 working cylinders. Classic.

 

Absolutely! The accompanying DVD is also excellent to witness. I was very impressed with it. And yes Richie kills it on "Last Days". He's a very good musician and fills Allen's spot rather well. In fact, dare I say it, I think he's better on the fretboard than Allen was and that's no disrespect to Allen whatsoever.

 

I went into an old school record shop today and was pleased to hear "Spectres" coming out of the speakers they didnt have any interesting BOC stuff in the racks so i bought a Dennis Coffey record which was missing from my collection

 

I agree 100%. I think Allen has Richie way "beat" on keyboards although Richie can hold his own on the ivories, and the reverse is also true with Richie's guitar pyrotechnics and great sense of melody in his 6 (or in the case of the solo above - 5) string skills. Dare I say it, but Richie is every bit as good on guitar as Buck is, just that only Buck is Buck as far as how his fingers chose to play his own cosmic choice of notes which make him one of my favorite axe slingers.

 

An observation on The Symbol Remains which is preposterous, but only intended for amusement:

It's almost like Eric/Buck/Richie have a latter days John/Paul/George thing going on here.

Eric = the hard, heavy, nasty material.
Buck = the soft, sweet, melodic material.
Richie = the young upstart trying to show he can keep up with the big boys.

 

A rich seam of truly great BÖC releases this year so far!
Tomorrow there’s the “Live ‘83” release for RSDBF and in early December there’s “Live At The Rock Of Ages Festival” and “A Long Days Night”, so more to come before the year is out.

 

Do you know if they are re-releasing just the CD of Long Day's Night, or just the DVD, or both? I'm not sure. Both are essential in my book since they do not have the exact same tracklist. Neither is the complete show unfortunately. Come to think of it would be cool if they would redo the CD (or both) and make them the entire show (that would expand it to 2 CDs though). I have a grey area but supposedly legal european release that is the whole show but the sound quality isn't as good as Long Day's Night (think it is mono).

 

I can only see a remastered CD/DVD combo available which is what I ordered. There is a separate Blu-ray.

 

Thanks. That's cool that they are releasing them together as CD/DVD (they were separate b4). Am not sure if the blu-ray will be any better quality than the DVD though, depends on the source used to record it in the first place. Not sure whether I should bother picking it up or not....

 

I've been trying to find the new CD reissues of these two albums, but apparently, they aren't getting very wide distribution, as U.K. imports, in the U.S. Amazon does have the reissue of Curse for $34, and they will soon have Heaven Forbid for $24. I would really much rather buy them from Bull Moose and not give my money to Amazon, but Bull Moose doesn't have the new reissues. Maybe I should just give in and buy these discs used? I like to buy new CDs to support the bands that I love, but it can be frustrating when reissues from American artists aren't released in the U.S.A.

 

Vinyl too https://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Days-Night-2lp-VINYL/dp/B08GV76QJT

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Live-Rock-Ages-Festival-VINYL/dp/B08GV7F868

 

I have the Blu-ray. I wrote about it in an earlier comment in this thread. The picture and sound are great. I don't even have the CD, because the Blu-ray is so good. EDIT: I thought you were referring to the London 45th Anniversary show here, but it seems like you're discussing the "Long Day's" concert release! Sorry for my mistake!

 

In this case, though, if not for the "young upstart," who has been in the band for a long time (several years) at this point, we probably wouldn't even have the new album! (As he seems to have played a fairly large role in it, with songwriting, arranging, and performing, and he seems to have lit a bit of a fire underneath Buck to want to capture this incarnation of the band on a new album.)

 

FYI, only HF is a new remaster as far as I can tell. COTHM is not remastered. In both cases the originals always sounded ok to me. I would guess that the prices on the old versions will or have collapsed due to the reissues.

 

I bought the new HF CD for 40 euro, including shipping. It sounds quite good. I afraid that the remaster will be much more compressed.

 

The DR for the original, MP3 mentioned so not exactly sure, but CD as the source.

Album details - Dynamic Range Database

Would like to see the DR for the new one.

 

New one could be even worse.. But I could buy this album again, if they will find a good bonus tracks.

 

I always saw In Thee as a bonus track.

 

I deleted that when I imported to my iPod, it just doesn’t make sense being on the album.

I got the Frontiers Records reissue of ‘Curse Of The Hidden Mirror’, and comparing on discogs to the original CD the booklet looks great with lyrics included.