Customer Reviews

Secret Treaties

5 star:		(65)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

No bones about it, I think this is one of the greatest rock albums of all time. I've owned it on 8 track, vinyl, the original CD issue, a French (inferioir avoid at all cost) remaster, and now this new version with bonus tracks. Sound quality is great, there may have even been some re-mixing involved because the bass and piano as well as some underlying rhythm guitar seems way more pronounced than on any other version I've heard; but the right EQ could have brought some of this to the surface as well. As for the bonus tracks : I anxiously awaited this release to hear what lost relics came from these sessions. They are interesting, but it was wise to leave them off the original running order of the album. They would have damaged the flow, and believe me this is one of the finest paced albums ever. If you are expecting chestnuts as cool as The Stalk Forrest Group CD put out by Rhino Handmade, you'll be sorely dissappointed. These songs didn't make the final cut of a classic album for good reason. The single version of "Career Of Evil" has a totally different vocal, with a few controversial lines changed for radio airplay, not that it was ever going to get any. The B-side studio version of "Born To Be Wild" is an interesting take on a classic, but I much prefer the live version on On Your Feat Or On Your Knees.

Subhumans, harvesters of eyes and cagey cretins, unite! On their third voyage through the soft white underbelly of human depravity, BOC splits the difference between the math-rock mayhem of "Tyranny and Mutation" and the Byrds-of-prey pop breakthrough of "Agents of Fortune," and elevated heavy metal to an artform that's far more sleek and sinister than anything Black Sabbath dared dream. While the lyrics often sound like they were encrypted first, rubic carabs swimming with blue-eyed horseshoes while Susy and her blindfolded brother dig the locomotion in Times Square on New Year's Eve in 1963, there's no missing the Chuck Berry goosestep boogie of "ME 262," a hymn to the Luftwaffe's fighter jet that also graces the cover, the whipcrack riffrot of "Dominance & Submission," the interstellar grandeur of "Astronomy" (lovingly covered by Metallica, who wouldn't exist without this record) and especially the synthesonic apocalypso of "Flaming Telepaths," where barrelhouse piano duels with Buck Dharma's dizbusting guitar licks in a blown-hemi sprint to see who can peak from the rush faster and louder while Eric Bloom solemnly informs the listener that "the joke's on you." And just to be sure you know they know you know the secrets of the circuitry mind, the reissue includes Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" as the inevitable benediction. All hail the progenitorturers of the superfluous umlat!

This is my favorite of the remastered reissues of the first four Blue Öyster Cult albums which Sony put out on the Columbia/Legacy label. As with the other reissues there are lyrics, photos, and liner notes by Lenny Kaye. In addition, on this release there are five bonus tracks, three of which were previously unreleased. "Secret Treaties" was recorded in 1974 and released in April of that year. As with their first two albums, it was produced by Murray Krugman and Sandy Pearlman. This remastered CD was released on June 26th of 2001. Bruce Dickinson produced the remastered versions. The album was originally planned to be titled "Power in the Hands of Fools".

For my money "Secret Treaties" is the best of their first three albums (often referred to as their "black-and-white" period). From the opening of "Career of Evil" (their second collaboration with Patti Smith) to the sounds of the wind dying away at the end of "Astronomy" the listener is entranced. Two of the songs on this album ("Astronomy" and "Subhuman") would reappear in different form more than a dozen years later on their "Imaginos" album. The song titles from this album read like a list of concert favorites for BÖC fans with songs like "Dominance and Submission", "ME 262", "Harvester of Eyes", and "Flaming Telepaths" joining those I already mentioned as songs often heard during their live shows. The remaining piece from the original release is the off-beat "Cagey Cretins", which falls short of the rest of the album but doesn't distract too much from the rest.

This remastered CD has five bonus tracks. The first three pieces ("Boorman the Chauffer", "Mommy", and "Mes Dames Sarat") are outtakes from the studio sessions for the album and none of them have been released before. As one might suspect, outtakes from an album this good are definitely worth a listen. The next is a studio version of "Born to Be Wild" which was the B-side for the live "Born to Be Wild" single from their first live album "On Your Feet or On Your Knees". The last bonus track is the single version of "Career of Evil", which has more "radio-friendly" lyrics.

The group consists of Eric Bloom (lead vocals, stun guitar, keyboards), Albert Bouchard (drums, vocals), Joe Bouchard (bass, vocals), Allen Lanier (keyboards, rhythm guitar, all synthesizers), and Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (lead guitar, vocals). The original album is five stars, and the added features of this release do not detract from the original, but instead enhance the experience.

I first listened to Blue Oyster Cult when they were already passing from popularity. I was young and had trouble getting past what I thought were corny keyboards and a distinctively murky 70's sound. But I kept listening until the music grew on me. Their sinister lyrics are partly-congealed ideas in the form of a big riddle that is not meant to be solved, but to be turned over and over again.

"Secret Treaties": The music is dark, filled with bass and distorted guitar. The lyrics are some of the finest in true Blue Oyster Cult fashion.

Be sure to buy the re-mastered version of "Secret Treaties." The first release had numerous technical defects, including the sound of the master tape warbling during the guitar solo in "Harvester of Eyes!" ACK! Three (of the FIVE!) bonus tracks are absolutely as good as the songs that made it to the final cut on the original. If you've got the first release, but don't think you need the remaster, you should reconsider. Your stereo and your imagination will thank you.

Granted, rating music is subjective (i.e it's a matter of taste). But it's also objective as well. Who could not reasonably argue that the Beatles were better than, for instance, Brownsville Station? My point is, Blue Oyster Cult is one of the most brilliant hard rock bands ever. Secret Treaties is their crowning achievement. A heavy metal assault of great compositions. That is when "heavy metal" meant something different than what it refers to today (i.e. screaming vocals and heavy banging chords to simple songs. Not my idea of great hard rock.). Deep Purple "In Rock," Uriah Heep "Look at Yourself," "Bloodrock 3", and early Led Zeppelin are examples of what once was heavy metal. As is Blue Oyster's "Tyranny and Mutation."

So I won't try to convince anyone of my opinion. But if you are still capable of listening to an album more than a couple of times before you know what you've heard, that's what it will take to understand Secret Treaties. It's beauty is not easily revealed. Career of Evil is such a pleasing opening to this drama. Dominance and Submission is a hard rock masterpiece. The final two songs, Flaming Telepaths and Astronomy, combine for an unsurpassed demonstration of hard rock magnificence! ("and the joke's on you...") But it's not superficial, nor is it accessible to most.

As I said, music is both subjective and objective. But to those who consider themselves to be long standing connoisseurs of hard rock (especially underground) from the 60s and 70s, I submit you cannot deny this album and this band its rightful place as one of the all time greats. In fact, if you disagree, then you remind me of a joke.

Two Americans were visiting the world famous art museum in Paris, The Louvre. As they were leaving, a French guard overheard one American saying to the other, "I don't think much of this place." The French guard responded, "Monsieur, the Louvre is not on trial here... you are." ----------- Secret Treaties is not on trial here... you are.

This is the pinnacle of BOC's career as well as being one of rock music's greatest achievements. The remastering is spectacular, lending this recording great depth and texture. What's really killer is when Dharma, Bloom and Lanier line up the guitars and play triple leads left, center and right, creating a layered effect, pushing the framework of modern rock music to boundries its never been to, since. If that's not enough, you've got the tightest rhythm section ever recorded...and keyboards! Secret Treaties is one of the most creative and entertaining progressive rock recording, easily comparable to Ziggy Stardust, Who's Next, Machine Head, etc. Treaties starts strong, and never lets up, songs flowing seamlessly into each other, creating a unified suite of songs, the last time BOC produced such an "Album Oriented Rock" record, abandonning this approach for uneven albums, and steller singles the rest of their career. Sensing the inevitable ending during the resonating piano of "Flamming Telepaths" and "Astronomy", I hoped this experience would last another 40 minutes. Instead, when done, I immediately played the cd again...with headphone. Needless to say, this is on my heavy rotation...as well as their debut and Tyranny and Mutation.

Nothing can prepare you for `Secret Treaties'. This goes off at a whole new tantalising tangent. Fulfilling all the raw, exhilarating promise of `Blue Öyster Cult' and incorporating all the explosive dynamics of `Tyranny & Mutation', the heavier elements of hard rock along with their trademark quirky ever-so-slightly askew linguistic contortions it also has something else. `Career of Evil' is my personal favourite here although admittedly `Flaming Telepaths' puts up a spirited fight for top spot. `Career' wins out because it is so compulsively, wickedly seductive both lyrically and musically. To those who would protest that surely `Astronomy' stands alone I would concur: it does. Nevertheless it is too flamboyantly grandiose a track to warm to and maybe I'm a little twisted but it just doesn't make me grin the way `Career of Evil' does. `Harvester of Eyes' and `Cagey Cretins' appeal to me on that same perverse level. Stadium rockers `Dominance and Submission' and `ME 262 will not fail to have you up and head-banging. I found `Subhuman' eerily captivating and haunting. A fine golden thread of unspoken narrative links the songs on this outing with a refreshing and endearing attitude of crediting the listener with a spark of intelligence not to mention some imagination. We didn't need `Imaginos' 14 years on to patronise and slap us in the face with its lack of subtlety, its condescension, its pretension and it's lack of even the advantages of freshness and spontaneity to redeem it having spent far too long in production, being tinkered with beyond salvation and to the point when it should have been mercifully put out of its misery long before it was released although I'll concede it did have one saving grace: the masterly reworking of `Subhuman' into `Blue Öyster Cult' not better but at least as good. That aside, don't let `em fool you - the real `Imaginos' is right here on `Secret Treaties'. The bonus tracks on the re-mastered edition are particularly rewarding. `Mommy' appeals to the pure evil in me as does `Boorman the Chauffer' and both make me laugh out loud. I'm not entirely sure what `Mes Dames Sarat' is all about but I like it anyway. The `Born to be Wild' version here is worth having and my only quibble is why did they include the pathetic watered down single version of `Career of Evil' as a bonus track? That decision doesn't begin to make sense.

Pink Floyd would love to make an album like this! Imagine revisiting World War II on acid. The music is rag-time meets
James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandie, meets heavy metal, meets bed time stories. Astronomy has the line "I know you soon will be married, and you want to know where wind comes from" that line alone gives you a good indication of the abstract philosophy
all throughout this masterpiece. Blue Oyster Cult's music is pure, and their relationship with their fans will always be a secret treaty based on repect, love, faith-thank-you lord above for BOC-in a world gone mad, its good to Know the Oyster Boys are somewhere in the world playing music form this great album. and yes the joke is on you! and when you can figure this album out then you will know where wind comes from! Suzzie dear.....

With their first 3 albums, BOC created a musical genre in which they were the sole participants. These records are nearly 30 years old, yet they contain riffs, chord progressions, words and sounds that to my knowledge, have never been duplicated; what the Cult managed to evoke was, quite simply, the sound of Chaos. Have you ever heard anything quite like the buildup to, and explosive release of, the guitar solo in Dominance and Submission?

Secret Treaties was the end of a cycle that would not be picked up again until the brilliant (but flawed) Imaginos. Still, it amazes me how these records implicitly defined a hidden, yet seemingly complete mythology; from the first album cover and first note of Transmaniacon MC, to the last winds of Astronomy, there has always been 'something else' to this trilogy. It's as if they knew exactly what they were doing and where they were going from day one -- that we pretty much know this was not the case (they were admittedly experimenting, finding their way musically, etc.) makes it all that much more impressive.

This is, and I kid you not, probably the best rock album ever made, and certainly the most underrated one! When listened to individually,the songs are of course excellent... but somehow taken out of context. It's when you digest the whole album in one go that you realise the extraordinary structural qualities of this hard rock masterpiece. Their early trademark trick by bridging the songs together without the obligatory 2 seconds of silence, works extremely well here. The music just go on and on and on - no pausing - turning "Secret Treaties" into one colossal piece of work - highlighted of course by the epic Flaming Telepaths-Astronomy.

As for the sounds: The surprising temposhifts, accomplished pyrotechnics of guitarist Buck Dharma, the almost contrapunctual approach to the soft and the hard (early Queen comes to mind as similar masters in this respect), almost jazz-style drumming and creepy, intelligent lyrics surpass just about everything that came out of the 70s..and beyond.

Go buy!