Blue Öyster Cult—Secret Treaties

Blue Öyster Cult—Secret Treaties

Secret Treaties—The enduring freshness of Blue Öyster Cult's hard rock was the greatest testimony to the intelligence of their music. Few bands could repeat the same formula three times and come out smelling like a rose, but they accomplished that with Secret Treaties. Of course, credit is due to lyricist-manager-producer Sandy Pearlman, who was responsible for much of the enduring mythos in the band's music. Treaties, bearing the image of a Nazi fighter jet on the LP cover, is the most explicit early adaptation of Pearlman's Soft Doctrines of Imaginos, an ongoing literary excursion explaining the Lovecraftian origins of World Wars I and II.

Blue Öyster Cult (1972) and Tyranny and Mutation (1973) were certainly Pearlman projects in their own right—he penned roughly half the songs' words—but Secret Treaties is strange for bearing exactly zero lyrics from the actual band members. This ends up being a double-edged sword; the album is more focused than its predecessors, but it lacks the welcome presence of the band's strongest songwriters: lead guitarist Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser and bassist Joe Bouchard (whose "Boorman the Chauffer" unfortunately ended up on the scrap heap). Pearlman, writer of five, Richard Meltzer of two, and Patti Smith contributing the single "Career of Evil" are all worthy enough, but more disappointingly Roeser and Bouchard do not sing, either; the entertaining Albert Bouchard features on one cut and half of another, but lead vocalist Eric Bloom dominates the record—as a lead singer perhaps should, but Bloom works better in smaller doses, and as it follows some of Secret Treaties' songs suffer from misappropriation.

"Career of Evil" fortunately benefits from Bloom's voice, as well as the indelible riffing and Smith's B-movie-via-rock-and-roll story. "Subhuman" lacks character; it has relevance to the Imaginos concept and is interesting as such, but the song never really gets going. Bloom is not emotive enough to flesh out Pearlman's words, and his music is rudimentary and transient (the song would be revisited as "Blue Öyster Cult" on the Imaginos album). "Dominance and Submission" is by contrast the best song they'd done yet: if Pearlman's story is confusing and disconnected, the band is fast and loose, Albert Bouchard's vocal invigorating, and Buck's solo electrifying. "ME 262," of course part of the World War II angle, is musically the most blues-colored piece, no doubt thanks to Roeser; amusingly, the song comes off more like a love song to a car—perhaps, nominally, something by Gary Usher or Roger Taylor—but succeeds on this merit.

"Cagey Cretins," the first in a successive pair of Richard Meltzer contributions, is fun. Less abstract than Pearlman, Meltzer focuses more on a type of lyric cogent with the inherent rock-craft of Blue Öyster Cult ("Being chased around by the neighbor's cat/It's so lonely in the state of Maine [Chuck Berry fill]). It works well there, but not so much on "Harvester of Eyes," which Bloom drags down except on the tuneful bridge, highlighting its main problem: unilateral doom in its chord changes, to go with a lackluster riff and a slogging tempo that makes it feel even longer than the 4:42 it encompasses. "Flaming Telepaths" is the Allen Lanier showcase, with blaring synthesizer and percussive piano overtaking Buck's explosive guitar until the closing minutes, when he takes the song to new heights. The band's chorus abruptly cuts to "Astronomy," where the Bouchards' prime composition buoys another key Imaginos tale. Though arguably the peak point of the album, it sticks out like a sore thumb with Lanier's glistening piano and Bloom at the higher end of his register among the seven rockers preceding it.

Secret Treaties is an excellent album by all normative standards: the sound is great and the songwriting is excellent. Its only real downfall is not utilizing the band's full range of talents like they did on most of their other classic albums.