Having been a casual fan of legendry New York rockers Blue Oyster Cult for some time (in fact, since the mid 80’s when I first heard Don’t Fear the Reaper), I was a little surprised to hear there was new music on the way. Given this would be their 15th studio album (across the best part of 50 years), and their first since 2001’s Curse of the Hidden Mirror, I listened with very little expectations of any sort of return to their hayday.
I was very happily surprised. When I heard the very first bars of the opening track That Was Me, my first thought was “yep, they are back, and they are as good as ever!”
Original member Donald Roeser (AKA Buck Dharma) and his long term collaborator Eric Bloom (who are 72 and 75 respectively – mind you, AC/DC have Brian Johnson (73) and Cliff Williams (70) and Bruce Springsteen is 71 and they all have new music out in 2020 too) have delivered a classic BOC album that is reminiscent of their 70’s hayday that produced such gems as Secret Treaties (1974) and Agents of Fortune (1976)
(As previously mentioned) The Symbol Remains opens with That Was Me with Eric Bloom on vocals – a solid, reasonably commercial, three minute rock song that would sit comfortably on any adult rock format radio (think 96fm in Perth, the Triple M network, etc.) – but who plays Blue Oyster Cult on radio in Australia? Track two, Box In My Head, sees Donald Roeser back on lead vocals and the third track, Tainted Blood, introduces us to the vocals of ‘new member’ Richie Castellano (who joined the band in 2004 and took on some lead vocal duties from 2007, this album is also the recording debut for drummer Jules Radino who also joined in 2004). This is one of the highlights of the album – three lead vocalists (Roeser sings lead on six tracks, Bloom five and Castellano three) giving the album plenty of colour without losing any of the BOC magic.
Apart from the opening three tracks that set the scene for the whole album, there are four other tracks of note – The Return of St. Cecilia (with Castellano on vocals), Stand and Fight (Bloom) and Florida Man (Roeser) – the latter being as close to a ballad as the album will give you but all three of these could sit comfortably on the aforementioned radio formats. The fourth stand out track is The Alchemist, a song written by Richie Castellano with Eric Bloom on lead vocals. This six-minute gem takes me back to the first time I heard Don’t Fear the Reaper and Godzilla (I was introduced to Blue Oyster Cult in 1984) – it’s a story, it’s fantasy, the film clip is sensational and, above all, it is simply great rock n roll.
Overall, The Symbol Remains is fifteen tracks of classic rock by a bunch of old blokes who are nowhere near ready to retire. If you are not familiar with the album or Blue Oyster Cult, become familiar. They were never big in Australia but that doesn’t stop them being one of the best at what they do – heavy rock n roll!
Let’s not wait another 19 years for another album gents!
8/10
TRACKLIST
That Was Me
Box in My Head
Tainted Blood
Nightmare Epiphany
Edge of the World
The Machine
Train True (Lennie’s Song)
The Return of St. Cecilia
Stand and Fight
Florida Man
The Alchemist
Secret Road
There’s a Crime
Fight
