BOC: Heaven Forbid

[William Fuller]

My review of Heaven Forbid.

Cover art: Horrid. Awful. Low budget. Completely pointless. Even the
text is the wrong color for the background. Yuck! Album covers
matter in marketing. People notice new albums and pick them up,
especially from bands they have never heard of before. The only people
who can get away with bland, lame album art are already famous and
people buy the album because they know about it ahead of time. Even if
you have a dynamite sounding record, people will never know if they
don't buy it. Marketing makes a difference! Even a photo of the band on
stage, far away, would have been better.

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.

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? Where are the
epic story-songs? Even Club Ninja, for all its faults, was truer to
the Blue Oyster Cult vision. At least it took some chances and had some
character. But where Club Ninja was too clever for its own good, Heaven
Forbid is too boneheaded for its own good.

Although it is obviously not fair to compare Heaven Forbid to Imaginos,
such a comparision is inevitable considering it was the last original
BOC studio album. Where Imaginos is lyrically rich, Heaven Forbid is
lyrically sparse. They try to cover up this deficit through repetition.

Listening to this album I am struck by just how much the band
lost with the departure of the Bouchard brothers. I listen the
Brain Surgeons and I hear all sorts of BOC type riffs and lyrics,
and then I listen to Heaven Forbid and I admire Buck's abilities,
but I feel something is missing. Not even Buck can fill all the
space with good music.

First of all, is it my imagination or was this album recorded much louder
than other albums? Black Sabbath used to do this in the 1990s and it
really pissed me off when I made mixed tapes, because all of a sudden
one song was noticably louder than the others.

See You in Black begins auspiciously with some aggressive soloing,
then settles into a repetitive riff which in itself is not a problem
but when combined with the half-shouted vocals "I'd like to see
you in black" over and over and over, the song wears out its welcome
far sooner than it should. Otherwise, lyrically a great idea for a
song, I wish they had done more with it. If they had only removed half
of the "I'd like to see you in black"s it would have improved the song.
It took me 5 minutes to think up some better lyrics they could have
replaced some of them with, like "Let's you and I make this pact" or
"He ain't never coming back" or "we'll get that bastard back"...
Ok those aren't the greatest but it took me 5 minutes. They have had
10 years!

Harvest Moon is a good Buck Dharma song, pleasantly spooky but
unfortunately not very exciting. It is a good choice for second song.
Lyrically, it has depth and tells story. But what a boring story it is.
Only in the last third of the song do we hear about anything unusual: a
monster or evil force is killing the children of the village. Then the
song ends before this idea can be developed. Repetition rears its ugly
head here as it did in the first song, and I found myself weary of hearing
the words "Harvest Moon" sung over and over. Just remove half of those and
the song would improve. Lots of good guitar work in the middle, though.

Power Underneath Despair was the first song which actually sounded like
BOC to me. Musically it is rockin' with signature BOC-style riffs, time
changes, and chorus vocals. It reminds me of the older-style BOC sound.
The lyrics are unfortunately again rather mundane (a guy gets out of
prison and vows revenge against those who put him there... yawn) and the
words "the power underneath despair" are sung over and over.

X-Ray Eyes is a happy bouncy song, with sci-fi (finally!) lyrics, good
singing and playing. Only two real complaints: 1) the first words "In the
50s Ray Miland pierced the skies" are extremely cheesy and stoopid, like
we couldn't figure it out on our own? We have to be told "This is about a
movie with actor Ray Miland, kids..." Lyrically, it creates that extra
layer of distance between the audience and the song, by telling them it is
a song about a movie. Unecessary and stoopid. 2) If you don't enjoy
hearing the words "X-ray eyes" sung over and over and over, you might not
like this song. And finally, both Bauhaus and Tumor Circus have already
done better songs called "The Man with X-Ray Eyes" about the same movie.

Hammer Back is a solid, hard riff of a song which I liked instantly.
In fact, in some ways it is my favorite on the album. Unfortunately,
the lyrics are awful. The first stanza is good but after that the song
degenerates into talk of carjacking and 7-11s. But musically I like it.
It's aggressive and has attitude, like Lips in the Hills.

Damaged begins well with some minimal guitar and vocals, then is soon
chugging along at a brisk pace with some signature Buck playing. This
one will get people dancing. The lyrics (drug abuse) are thoughtful
and seem to fit in with the BOC vision. All in all a winning song.
The speed up at the end is classic and adds to the charm of the song.

Cold Grey Light of Dawn is a competent supporting song, a ballad about
a man who still feels guilty for a murder he committed years ago.
On the whole it is a good song but the rhythm section is slow, simple,
and boring. However, it does qualify as a doom and gloom song (though
just barely).

Real World is an accousticly driven song about rains of frogs and fish
and weird happenings. It has the typical Buck Dharma soft rock feel to it.
While pleasant, it is a poor successor to such great paranormal songs
as ETI, The Vigil, and Take Me Away. It is too relaxed and needs more
tension and a hard edge to it. I would have done something sounding
more like "Don't Turn your Back" and put it as the last track on the
album.

Live for Me is a sad song, lyrically the strongest on the album. It's
definitely doom and gloom in the classic BOC style, but tempered with
a typical Buck Dharma uplifting message. It reminds me of his song Your
Loving Heart. Musically it sounds like something from Club Ninja or
Revolution by Night. It's a good song, although at times Buck seems to be
trying to carry too much of the the music himself.

Still Burning begins with a funky guitar riff. The song is layered and
fairly complex, with typical BOC chorus vocals. But it's also rather
boring, especially lyrically. I find myself wanting to like it, and
failing.

In Thee is a very cool accoustic version with what sounds like the whole
band singing. However, I do question why it was put on the CD. Considering
that minus In Thee, Heaven Forbid clock in at 41:23, it begins to seem
like padding. But still, it is a cute way to end the album.

This record would be considered great work by any unknown band. As a BOC
record, it falls short of their best material. The constant repetition
was annoying the very first time I heard the music, a bad sign. The sound
of Heaven Forbid relies less on synthesizers than the later BOC albums
did, and this is a welcome trend. I am disappointed with most (certainly
not all) of the lyrics. But on the whole I still like it. I recommend it
to any fan of Blue Oyster Cult. Do I recommend it to first time BOC
listeners? No. In my opinion it is neither their best work nor is it
typical. In my opinion better introductory album would be Imaginos, Fire
of Unknown Origin, or Workshop of the Telescopes.

--
William Fuller   fswof at uaf.edu
                 ICQ 1530842
                 http://members.tripod.com/~Zomb