A1 I Am The One You Warned Me Of
Written-By – A. Bouchard, D. Roeser, S. Pearlman
5:03
A2 Les Invisibles
Written-By – A. Bouchard, S. Pearlman
5:32
A3 In The Presence Of Another World
Backing Vocals – Shocking UWritten-By – J. Bouchard, S. Pearlman
6:26
A4 Del Rio's Song
Written-By – A. Bouchard, S. Pearlman
5:34
A5 The Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle At Weisseria
Vocals [Additional Lead] – Joey Cerisano Written-By – A. Bouchard, S. Pearlman
6:43
B1 Astronomy
Written-By – A. Bouchard, J. Bouchard, S. Pearlman
6:48
B2 Magna Of Illusion
Written-By – A. Bouchard, J. Bouchard, S. Pearlman
5:54
B3 Blue Oyster Cult
Written-By – E. Bloom, S. Pearlman
7:18
B4 Imaginos
Vocals [Additional Lead] – Jon RogersWritten-By – A. Bouchard, S. Pearlman
5:46
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Recorded and mixed at Alpha & Omega Studios San Francisco.
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Imaginos: A bedtime story for the children of the damned...
From a dream world, paralleling our earth in time and space, the invisible ones (Les Invisibles) have sent an agent who will dream the dream of history. With limitless power, he becomes the greatest actor of the 19th century. Taking on junctures in history, continually altering it's course and testing our ability to respond to the challenge of evil. His name is "Imaginos".
While the basic theme and music from Imaginos was initially undertaken by BÖC's Albert Bouchard, the solo-attempt eventually evolved into a full scale Blue Öyster Cult project. Several years in the making, Imaginos is perhaps the Long Island based group's heaviest offering since the raging, cold-hearted and metallic Secret Treaties opus was delivered in 1974. The cerebral group went so far as to re-record "Astronomy" (originally from the stealth Secret Treaties album), on this opaque, yet lavish and ambitious concept recording from 1988.
The inspired effort opens with the sturdy "I Am the One You Warnerd Me Of". Following the clever introductory track Blue Öyster Cult meander through the hypnotic, everything-revolves-around-seven "Les Invisibles", the atmospheric "In the Presence of Another World", and the melodic "Del Rio's Song". The lumbering "The Siege and Investiture of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria" may be a long-winded title, but the song captures BÖC in six-plus-minutes of full flight. The intricate arrangement is further proof of the genius from the Cult. The galloping, clock-strikes-twelve "Astronomy" sounds as vital as it did in '74. "Magna of Illusion" brings a lighter shades to the disc, as does the mesmerizing "Blue Öyster Cult". The title track, penned with assistance from Sandy Pearlman, brings the nine song effort to a stirring conclusion.
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Imaginos has some kind of legacy. Among a certain crowd (and time), it's been heralded as BOC's best, and even for most fans it's still high up there. It's sometimes even included as a sort of exception to the post-OYFOOYK trajectory of the band's sound by those who consider post-black and white-era BOC too commercial. In spite of all this, reissues have been rare. Something about all the years it was the drummer's project or something.
Anyway, it's great.
Imaginos is probably about the most consistently heavy thing BOC put out since about 1975, bordering on being a prog. metal record, but nevertheless retains a lot of the variety (and subtlety) that they'd developed after finally getting the production they wanted in 1976. It's not as long as it ought to be, but even the demo doesn't have everything intended to be included.
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See me in the Blue Sky Bag, and meet me by the sea
By 1988, the mighty Blue Öyster Cult had succumbed to obscurity, indeed they never had regained there steam after Fire of Unknown Origin. Glam metal, and two lack luster albums had pretty much wiped them from the face of popular music, which technically they wanted all along, they never really saw themselves as a pop group when they first started out, which I feel is the way it should be. Well regardless, I feel this is also there swan song, (oh yes they made other albums after this but this should have been there last) and wow what a hell of a way to go, its still cheesy but dammit its heavy cult! Its as cryptic as ever and it pretty much capture's what the cult is. remember those songs "sub-human" and "Astronomy" from Secret Treaties? well this is what that album was leading to in the long run.
The album is Progressive in that it deals with what Blue Öyster Cult actually is, finally an end to the wonderful crypticness. Alright, remember the aliens on the cover of Fire of Unknown Origin, well they are the cult! they are a secret group who inadvertently control earths history from behind the scenes. and they have recruited a new member, Known as "imaginos" to inherit there dirty work. This all takes place inside a dream like narrative, which can be tiresome to figure out but just makes it that more epic.
Each song forms the narrative for Imagino's adventures, for example the cryptic lyrics of "Subhuman" tell of how he is washed up on the beaches of Mexico with oyster pearls or something to that. I have to say though the re-imaginings of "Astronomy" and "Sub-human" aren't that bad, they have this mysterious and eerie atmosphere to them, accompanied by that oh so slick 80's production, but I think ill stick with the originals. The rest of the album is very strong, its a damn shame it didn't come out much earlier in there fading career but its also brilliant because it just further adds to the cryptic obscurity that Ive always loved about the band. This all works exceptionally well, but their are a few things i have to nit pick. Unfortunately the songs are left out of order due to the dream like narrative of the album, so its very much up to debate.
Ill let that pass, the only other thing is that this isnt technically a Blue Öyster Cult album, most of the material written here was supposed to appear on one of the members solo albums, but thankfully longtime producer and co writer for the Cult sandy pearlman insisted on making this a B.Ö.C. album. For what the songs are, there well crafted and brooding. but sometimes the session singer and backing vocals are just intolerable at times, case and point the middle of "In the Presence of Another World" Dont get me wrong, down right awesome song, really strong...until we get to the middle chorus and the background singers eff it up!!
"Blue Öyster Cult" is another sad example, essentially a remake of "Sub-human", it just sorta lingers on excellent and fairly, "roll your eyes" over the top, I.E. the wimpy male backing vocalist. In contrast "Les Invisibles" is the best damn song (IMHO) the cult has ever done, im not joking everything from the absurd lyrics to the "seven-seven-seven" chorus is pretty awesome!
"The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria" is probbaly the only song that just feels out of place but still on its own its a fairly strong song, love the instrumentation, it feels like a cheesy arena rock song played on Halloween but damn its awesome, especially the lead session singer in it. the only real problem is i have no clue what the correlation is between Frankenstein and the Imaginos story arc is.
The albums two weakest songs are "Imaginos" and "Del Rio's Song", the latter of which makes no sense to me. but "Imaginos" is easily the weakest here.
There's my two cents to Blue Öyster Cult's obscure magnum opus. Its so close, in my opinion, to being a groundbreaking staple to the bands discography and for me at least, it ranks just as high as Treaties or Specters. If you love the band as much as I do, definitely check this one out!
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Okay, let's be honest here. This was a bit of false advertising. The album lists the classic line-up of the group, as if this was some sort of reunion album. Truth is, it was originally intended as an Albert Bouchard solo album, based on poems and stories by long-time producer Sandy Pearlman concerning the influences of aliens and, in particular, a "modified child" who is granted immortality so that he may cause chaos amongst humanity.
Convoluted, sure. A Blue Öyster Cult album? Well, not really. All the members do play on here at some point, but not together. Heck, "The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria", one of the best parts of the album, features a session vocalist.
Forget all that for the moment. Despite the misleading name on there, this is one great concept album, featuring a smattering of events out of order (purposely so, so it plays out like a dream), and features updates of "Subhuman" (here retitled "Blue Öyster Cult") and "Astronomy". Yes, the '80s production is dated, but the songwriting is great, the concept interesting and the album better than the preceding to that were by the actual band.
If you can, get the 12-inch single of "Astronomy", which has an introduction by Stephen King.
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I've been listening to this album since 1988 and I still don't "get" it. I've read that it is supposed to be some sort of concept album, but all the information I can find about it is that it was originally an Albert Bouchard solo album based on some Imaginos poetry by Sandy Pearlman. The name of the band and the piece of poetry it came from apparently being about aliens come to guide history. Whatever--the album was sitting on the New Release shelf, and I was only familiar with Agents of Fortune and wanting to spend my money randomly, so home it went with me. I'm pretty sure that the cover, plus the title of the song "The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria" ensured that the album was going home with me. Finding out it had a guitar orchestra including Joe Satriani on the inside jacket was a big bonus, though there's not exactly a place in the album where a guitar orchestra is made obvious.
Anyway, the album came with no lyrics and most of the time I couldn't tell what was going on in the tunes, and the blurbs on the back cover and the "story" on the inside jacket made little to no sense, leaving it to the music alone to carry the album for me, which it does. I'm sure many people who have a better grasp of lyrics and more patience for the timeline were able to piece together a meaningful experience out of it. There's something unique about the vibe of this album, from the cover art to the mysterious story and ultimately the epic sound of the music that has carried the album for me year after year. The album is extremely well-produced and composed. Even the songs that kind of suck (Del Rio's Song, Imaginos, parts of Les Invisibles and Astronomy) always have elements that draw me in and force me to not skip over them. The above mentioned "Siege" tune is truly magnificent, even though hearing the singer chant "Frankenstein" over and over is a bit silly.
I have no opinion on the place of the album within the BOC canon and the drama that surrounded the personnel and release, but it's too bad the album didn't do better when it came out. Sometimes it is better to buy albums in a vacuum and absorb them without the hype.
Blue Öyster Cult is a hard rock band from New York, USA. The name Blue Öyster Cult first came into use in 1971, but the roots of the group date back to 1967 to a psychedelic group called Soft White Underbelly, which featured Albert Bouchard (drums), Allen Lanier (keyboards, guitar), Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (guitar), Andy Winters (bass), and Les Braunstein (vocals, AKA Les Vegas (3)) and operated under the guidance of manager/producer Sandy Pearlman. Braunstein departed in 1969 and was replaced by Eric Bloom. The band changed their name to The Stalk-Forrest group shortly after. Later, Winters was fired and replaced by Albert's younger brother, Joe. The band released their debut album in 1972.
All the members contributed to the songwriting but lyrics were often provided by people outside of the group, including Sandy Pearlman, rock scribe Richard Meltzer, poets Patti Smith (Lanier's longtime companion) and Jim Carroll, and science fiction author Michael Moorcock, amongst others. Eric Bloom served as the band's primary lead vocalist, but Donald Roeser sang what are arguably the band's most famous songs, including "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", "Godzilla", and "Burnin' For You". The Bouchard brothers also contributed lead vocals.
1976's "Agents Of Fortune", featuring the aforementioned "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", was the group's most successful studio album. After a commercial decline in the latter half of the 1970's, the group found renewed success with 1981's "Fire Of Unknown Origin". However, Albert Bouchard was fired after its release (he returned temporarily in 1985). The band continued but was unable to recapture their commercial fortunes. Lanier departed in 1985 and Joe Bouchard left in 1986. Lanier returned in 1987 and the band continued to tour, although they recorded very little. 2001's "Curse Of The Hidden Mirror" is the band's last studio recording to date. Roeser and Bloom continue to tour with new members (Lanier retired from the band in 2006 and passed away in 2013) .