BOC: Heaven Forbid

[Andy Gilham]

Well, mine showed up this morning, on to second listen, so now I can join
in! :)

> Cover art: Horrid. Awful.

It's _so_ gnarly I think I like it!  Really!

>Yuck! Album covers
> matter in marketing.

I guess England's different from the US in this respect, but BOC are so
unhip here it hurts, and I can't see cover art changing its sales an iota,
either up or down - the only people who are going to buy it are diehards
like me, and those who've read a good review in Kerrang!, and the cover
won't matter to either of those groups.

Having said that, I'm glad I ordered it by mail instead of buying it in the
shop :)

> Music: On the whole, I like it. I will probably listen to it many times.
> It's hard rockin', quirky, and technically well played. I encourage
> anyone to buy it.

Not *that* hard rockin' :)  Not compared to a lot of stuff I listen to
anyway!

>
> However to me it sounds little like Blue Oyster Cult. From this
> point of view, I am disappointed. Where is is the mystery? Where is
> the doom and gloom? Where are the sci-fi/fantasy lyrics?

Gone with Messrs Pearlman and Meltzer, I guess.  You could try pasticheing
their style, but that would be horrid.  Better to take another tack
entirely, IMO.  Anyway most sci-fi is crap :)

I think it's wrong to blame JS alone for repetition in choruses - if he
writes "Keep the hammer back" once, and the band sing it 20 times, whose
fault is that?

>Where are the
> epic story-songs?

"Harvest Moon". :)

>Even Club Ninja, for all its faults, was truer to
> the Blue Oyster Cult vision.

Produced by SP, of course...

First listen, I like "Power Underneath Despair" best.  Some tracks verge
towards generic American rock.

- Andy

mailto:Andy.Gilham at btinternet.com;
http://www.btinternet.com/~andy.gilham