[boc-l] BOC: Thoughts on "The Symbol Remains"

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2021, Alex S. Garcia via boc-l wrote:
> So I got my copy of the latest BOC a few months ago. I know, it's been 
> out for a long time now, but it was constantly out of stock in my local 
> record store and I never got around to ordering it until March or April, 
> I forget now when exactly.

> Anyway, to cut a long story short, I finally got to listen to the album for the first time a few days ago. Gave it a second spin just now and, this time, I followed along with the lyrics.
>
> My first assessment is that this CD just confirms what I've noticed in the past: the songs I like the *least* tend to be the Dharma-penned ones. Not that they're necessarily bad, but they often tend to be too poppy for my taste.

[...]

> CONCLUSIONS
>
> So my main gripe with the album is that it has more tracks that don't fit than tracks that fit. Though I suppose some could argue that if there are more that don't fit, can it truly be said that they don't? Maybe they do and it's just that the band has evolved...
>
> Perhaps I'm just pining for a band that no longer exists, that stopped existing years ago.
>
> But damn it! How can I not pine for them when I hear a track like "The Alchemist"? Riddle me that.

 	Dear all,
 		  Alex's post has made me remember that I never in fact 
did post my own thoughts on the new album as I promised/threatened some 
months ago, so thanks Alex for the prompt. Also hi!

 	I have to say that my reaction to this album was a lot more 
positive than Alex's, for all that I do see his point about it being a bit 
disjointed. I do like Buck's songs, by and large, but CotHM was too much 
like a Buck solo album for me. Obviously he's now the main songwriter in 
the band, and I think that's just the evolution Alex mentions, but for 
ages it has frustrated me that they've also got these other younger 
members full of talent who weren't really getting their turn.

 	For me this album fixes that, and I tend to agree that the 
Castellano pieces are more impressive, more like the pomp and circumstance 
of the old albums, while Buck still brings the agility and flip that they 
had, but without the grandeur. Maybe we can't get both of those together 
any more, but weirdly, when it comes closest to happening on this album 
(which I agree is probably 'The Alchemist', which is just fantastic), the 
secret ingredient turns out to be Eric in the writing credits. So part of 
me thinks that Alex's reaction is fair and that if they'd just hit 
whatever working methods produced that combination, we'd have more of a 
winner here; but the rest of me thinks that I listened to every song on 
this album expecting to be disappointed by Shirley's lyrics or the 
comfy-armchair sound of CotHM, and actually they never did disappoint me 
and even the quieter songs had twists I didn't foresee. (Perhaps I'm just 
impressionable, but the chorus of 'Florida Man' starts a sympathetic tear 
or two in my eye and I don't see those stories the same way now that I 
'know' what the real deal is...)

 	The other thing that struck me within minutes of the first 
play-through was that the BÖC songs it had me thinking of and wanting to 
go back to were the 1980s ones, not the old ones. That's partly just 
because the album title conjures 'Shadow of California' whether you ask it 
to or not, of course, but in general this whole album has a lot more of 
tRbN about it, and some of the good aspects of CN (I know, I know, 
disputable that there are any). Given how much of tSR Shirley wrote, I 
think that's a really good sign. It didn't remind me of HF or (thank 
goodness) CotHM, bar a few echoes of 'Dance on Stilts'; it reminded me of 
the immediately post-Bouchard era when the band was damaged but still 
finding a creative way into its new form. Maybe that's not the good old 
days everyone would want BÖC returning to, and I don't at all mean that 
this is fact a backward-looking or retro album; but that it has that 
flavour makes it a real BÖC album that fits in the canon, at least for me.

 	Also, for heavens' sake, it has at least one song about vampires, 
one about a biker rampage, several about weird doings in backwoods America 
and a massive epic about murderous sorcery extending over centuries. If 
this album was by anyone else BÖC could practically sue for infringement! 
:-) Stay well everyone, yours all,
 				   Jonathan

ObLP: Dark Sun - _Ice Ritual_ (still safely in my care, Carl!)

-- 
        Jonathan Jarrett, Keighley and University of Leeds
     "Says not the Wise One, `When two men cannot agree over
      the price of an onion, who shall decide what happened
     in the time of Yu?'" (Kai Lung, reported by Ernest Bramah)