…they ain’t the best looking band in the world. But they got the most stamina and the most heart, and they’ve lived like dogs.
— Patti Smith, “The Field Marshal of Rock and Roll”
Heaven Forbid (1998) begins the terra incognita of Blue Öyster Cult.
Blue Öyster Cult spent a decade meandering about the 1990s after the failure of Imaginos (1988). They were alive in America, but dead to the general public. Those years were filled with digs and dismissals about how inert the formerly raucous Cult were in the grungy, idealized realism of the 1990s. Ohio State’s The Lantern in March 1996 advertised a Cult show at the Newport Music Hall (Tickets: $14.50) with the droll, half-insult that: “Blue Öyster Cult will be jamming their ancient tunes.” It was a fact that touring on the weekend warrior hits was a more sound economic decision than a return to the studio. When the Cult did return, the result was a “credible” album in Heaven Forbid. Gone was the Cult’s conceptual terror, most of the amphetamine nightmares, but, upon release in 1998, Heaven Forbid was received as a solid album, a return to form, in short: “credible.”
Heaven Forbid was the result of a pretty open decade for the band in the 1990s. Eric Bloom started playing the online role-playing game GemStone III and chatting with fans on AOL (America Online) about what they wanted to see from the band’s live set list. Allen Lanier spent it fishing and, according to fan testimony, reading Gore Vidal novels. Buck Dharma was the busiest with his 1990 side project, The Red & Black, or RonDonJon (short for Roeser, Riddle, and Rogers), to test out more experimental, progressive music that would (eventually) end up on Heaven Forbid. The Cult, or largely Buck, contributed a full soundtrack alongside two original songs, “Demon’s Kiss” and “The Horsemen Arrive,” to the 1992 B-movie Bad Channels. Outside the band, the Bouchard brothers, Cult alumni, were busy. Joe Bouchard, outside teaching, wrote the successful guide Rock Guitar for Beginners (1996), and, later, the popular follow-up Bass for the Absolute Beginner (2002). Albert Bouchard was touring with the Brain Surgeons and produced a few indie bands like Maria Ex Communikata. The Cult was comfortable in an era where cellular phones, video games, and the Internet were becoming superfluously common. “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” even made an appearance in the cult 1996 full-motion video game Ripper alongside Christopher Walken!
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Consigned to the club circuit after Imaginos, Blue Öyster Cult was functionally alive, but had seen better days. Mainstays Buck Dharma, Eric Bloom, and Allen Lanier remained, but churn was common throughout the 1990s. The drummer’s seat had been precarious after Albert Bouchard’s departure. Ron Riddle, one of Bouchard’s later replacements, quit the band in 1991, which resulted in a string of short-lived replacements: Chuck Bürgi of Meatloaf, Jon Miceli and John O’Reilly of Rainbow, then, by 1997, Bobby Rondinelli of Black Sabbath. Bassist Jon Rogers too quit the band in 1995. He was replaced for a short stint by Greg Smith of Alice Cooper, but a more solid replacement was found in Danny Miranda in 1995. Miranda, after a later sabbatical, would remain with the band long-term. As he had decided to become an academic, former band manager Sandy Pearlman, through a mutual friend, introduced the Cult to cyberpunk novelist John Shirley. Shirley would become the Cult’s lyric-man for these later albums. He had written a novel (Transmanicon) named after the early Cult song, but the public would know the cyberpunk godfather better for bringing James O’Barr’s The Crow to Hollywood in 1994, writing many of the screenplay drafts for the film. Shirley’s words, usually faxed to Dharma or Bloom, were more hard-edge and noir than Pearlman’s multi-layered obscura, but, in varying quality, they were appropriate “conceptual grist,” according to Dharma, for the era.
There lingered throughout all this the implication that the Cult were on their way to irrelevancy. While they were in the wilderness, the Cult were not blind to what was going on in the music business. In a 1990/1991 interview on Into the Night with Rick Dees with (who else?) Rick Dees, Dharma said his favorite recent albums were by Public Enemy and, the now unfortunately forgotten,Toy Matinee by Patrick Leonard and Guy Pratt. The Cult were on the outside, but not unaware. Or as Bloom put the entire post-Imaginos period in direct terms, “It had become apparent that we could no longer operate the same way, and we were not going to reinvent ourselves every year-and-a-half, like Madonna.” There was little need as the Cult continued to tour more for fun than profit, but the decreasing pull of their public appeal was obvious. Despite Axl Rose’s known admiration of the Cult’s sound, Blue Öyster Cult was not going head to head with Guns N’ Roses when Use Your Illusion I (1991) was topping the charts. The only sign of studio life in this period was the rather wooden compendium of re-recorded hits Cult Classic (1994), which lacked anything fresh for the die-hards. Yet, as Buck’s taste shows, the Cult was dynamic enough to survive so new opportunities did come around.
That opportunity came with Sanctuary Records (previously CMC International) in 1997/1998. Eric Bloom, since the early 1990s, had been talking about material that would end up on a studio album if it happened, but it turned out to take a while as the music market was so cold on the Cult. Blue Öyster Cult was what Sanctuary was looking for. CMC International/Sanctuary Records had developed a strategy of cutting contracts to the once popular rock/metal acts of the 1970s and 1980s in hopes they could juice one more hit out of them—or enough to turn a profit on. These were essentially “come back” albums,”but were not billed as such. Most of the ironman bands Sanctuary picked up had never officially broken up like Molly Hatchet, Saxon, .38 Special, then (arguably) Deep Purple and Dokken. It was not a bad strategy as Sanctuary was able to corner the market on these seasoned acts, which the rest of the market ignored. The hope was that introducing old talents to a new generation would net loose pocket change. This would result in Blue Öyster Cult announcing their first record in ten years: Ezekiel’s Wheel, later titled officially as the appropriate Heaven Forbid.
Heaven Forbid opens with “See You In Black,” which sets a realer tone. Shirley’s lyrics here describe an obsessed man, a deluded stalker, talking a woman into killing her abusive husband so they, supposedly, can run away together to Greece. A pretty gritty subject colored by obsessive delusion. The Cult was now operating in the realistic colors of the 1990s rather than the cinema screen tones of 1970s slasher horror. Bloom’s tougher vocals here denote the new era and the harsher tone of the album. Supervillains replaced by New York mafiosos. There is an obvious John Thurgood and the Destroyers influence, which the Cult pairs with an early manifestation of a more modern, blackened metal noise restrained by hints of Blue Öyster Cult melody. The rather unredacted subject material of domestic abuse is part of the album’s wider effort to exit the Cult’s comfort zone while keeping it tasteful. “See You In Black” had actually first appeared in the Cult’s live sets in the early 1990s when the band began testing new material, and Eric Bloom promised it would end up on whatever album they cut.
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Classic Blue Öyster Cult melody and subject matter return with “Harvest Moon.” It’s a subtle horror ballad, originally one Dharma tested with The Red & The Black, with a gloomy Stephen King or Anne Rice atmosphere. A classic Dharma tune that seduces more than intimidates. This one is about a strange, depressed American town and its less-than-regular autumnal events. Melodic and ominous, Dharma’s spooky vocals recount the chill of unexplained disappearances. The Cult returned to their wheelhouse here, in the vein of “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and “Burning For You,” but the smooth guitar paranoia changes it up enough to create an incredible Halloween aura. Allen Lanier’s keyboard playing could convince anyone that “Harvest Moon” would have been a hit had it not been secreted away in the rattling thicket of the Cult’s back catalog. Being hidden on Heaven Forbid is an issue all the stand-out songs here have as only established fans picked up the album. Despite being uninvolved in Heaven Forbid, Sandy Pearlman praised “Harvest Moon” as one of the Cult’s main masterpieces. Indeed, “Harvest Moon” is the standout song of Heaven Forbid.
A classic revenge song follows on the heavy-hitting “Power Underneath Despair.” The gray and guttural lyrics, Shirley said, are about a betrayed man who experiences a symbolic death and then hunts down the gangsters who hung him up in prison. The splash of color comes with his hunt for “the man with the golden tattoo.” The issue is the phrase “power underneath despair” is too cumbersome to make a good hook when sung in repetition. It is interesting to hear the Cult play into their quote-unquote metal reputation, but Eric Bloom can only go so far by powering through the vocals. The Cult attempts to cover for this by playing into the thumping momentum of the song. There is a knife-fight energy here, a foggy tension to the song, but it all fizzles out.
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“X-Ray Eyes” is the weakest selection of Heaven Forbid. It speaks to the horrible knowledge of true sight, pulp comic book advertisements (sea-monkeys not included), and, as Ray Milland is name-checked in the lyrics, the Roger Corman movie X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963). A rather prog rock Dharma tune that showcases the worst indulgences of the album. “X-Ray Eyes” is too noodly with not much to hold on to except the repetitive lyrics. The lyrics are not much either. They border more on a Weird Al parody of a Blue Öyster Cult song. Strangely, “X-Ray Eyes” comes right off the much heavier “Power Underneath Despair,” but the Cult can always be credited with taking brave steps no matter the direction.
“Hammer Back” is an Eric Bloom ode to the Dirty Harry personality type. It’s a weighty song about stick-ups and shootouts in the underbelly of the United States. The Cult touches on the realer subject of everyday gun violence here. Shirley declared the lyrics were about PARANOIA (all caps by him). The song plays to the bluesier and funkier denomination of 1990s metal that was squirming about at the time. A clear indication that the Cult was toying with fresher influences despite Heaven Forbid being intended as more of a return to form. One can detect a possible alt-rock influence on Bloom’s twangier vocals throughout the tune. The song is full of evil riffs from Dharma and thumping, speedy drums courtesy of Chuck Burgi. Much more solid than “X-Ray Eyes,” middling overall compared to Heaven Forbid’s high points, but there are memorable lines such as Bloom waning, “Maybe at a Seven-Eleven / Maybe at a quick carjack / You’ll verify there ain’t a heaven…”
The Cult puts an introspective face on for “Damaged.” One of their more personable and poetic songs, but, unlike their Patti Smith tracks, “Damaged” is conveyed through a stoic honky-tonk bravado with an intentionally anarchic disco flair. It’s about an aged rocker (or really anyone!) who cannot help but indulge their animalistic or, metaphorically, auto-cannibalistic hungers: “Gonna kick the habit and the taste / Trust me baby, this time it’s real / There’s a big part of me I’ve yet to waste!” The song teases to dissolve into chugging, but swerves quickly back towards a lighter biker rock direction more reminiscent of Blue Öyster Cult (1972) or Tyranny and Mutation (1973). Danny Miranda on bass and Burgi on drums are able to prove they can put a fresh, playfully retrograde, skin on the Cult’s sound. This is a good cut to introduce to anyone who wants to hear the soundscapes of the Cult’s later, lesser-known catalog. The wolfish “Damaged,” The Island of Doctor Moreau receives a reference in lyric, is the funnest song off Heaven Forbid. Is it the best-executed song off the album? No, but it has real honesty: “Wish I was a better person / With more control…” Very fun!
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Crime, guilt, and jealousy: “Cold Gray Light of Dawn.” This one’s a neo-noir thriller about how the truth cannot be killed. A (literal) reflection on another real subject, but Shirley’s hard-edge, cyberpunk-derived lyrics shine through with Bloom’s voice. One can argue there is also a touch of self-commentary by the Cult on their position contra the music business of the late 1990s, “In the fading light / From a middle-aged star / You’ve seen every blemish / Every sign of age / And it’s useless to whine / and it’s useless to rage…” “Cold Grey Light of Dawn” is a concession to the Cult’s harder style from Cultösaurus Erectus (1980). The track does not tread water; it is true hard rock spiffed up with jazzy progressions and a straight-to-the-point production. There are finer touches, such as the subtle baritone harmonizing near the conclusion. Honorable work, but the knife’s edge is blunt.
Blue Öyster Cult next offers up one of the most Blue Öyster Cult songs ever written: “Real World,” which abandons the “real world” in favor of an outlandish series of scenes: “Arias sung by mongrel dogs,” “Whispers from the desert stones,” “Divinations in lizard bones,” “Discs that stretch into cigars,” “Trees twist into secret signs.” Oddities, impossibilities, UFOs, and secrets all intended to draw a contrast between real lives and how unreal those lives actually are. The best lyrics on the album in total. Oddly enough, in subject and substance, “Real World” most resembles the folksy “In Thee” off Mirrors (1979)—obviously intentional, as Heaven Forbid includes a live version of “In Thee” as a bonus track. Liminal, as the kids would say, as this is a ‘heavy metal folk’ by Dharma that combines lighter guitar manipulations with a clash of drums and bass. The song’s slower conclusion hints at that common blues influence in Buck’s vocals! The dry production here helps all the new sounds of this era come together with sincere skill. As the song says: “Call it real, but call me real soon.”
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Heaven Forbid returns to unalienated real subject matter with the inspirational dirge “Live For Me.” A sentimental narrative about a man who promises his dying brother to “live big” as the brother’s life has been robbed from him in a drunk driving accident. This is the spiritual center of Heaven Forbid: “Live twice as big / Love twice as long / Work twice as hard / Play all of your cards / Live for me…” The song is reflective of a pain that heals into a greater gift of inspiration. Big drums and big guitar are the sound with an ethereal melody. Robert Rondinelli, of Black Sabbath fame, on drums here, pulls off a few psychedelic hat tricks. In contrast to the subject matter, “Live For Me” concludes on a hopeful note. Heaven Forbid is functionally a better realized Club Ninja where the listener wants to hear where the Cult goes next with each non-typical sound.
Luckily, “Still Burnin’” is not an attempt to replicate “Burning For You”! People are often afraid it is the Cult scrapping at one more hit, but “Still Burnin’” only has a similar title. Dharma treats us to a cool metallic, pop-y burner about sensational love for a mature woman with a shared passion. The lyrics are not much to chew on, but they are an appropriate kiss for the song: “Take me to the / Edge of madness / Let me feel your / Secret passion.” One always gets the impression that, had he been born twenty years later, Buck Dharma would have become a chart-topping ghostwriter and major studio regular rather than a rock star named Buck Dharma. Of course, the immortality of Blue Öyster Cult proves it was better to become Buck Dharma. “Still Burnin’” is heavy, digestible rock with a strong pop influence due to Buck on guitar and Jon Rogers on bass–both avowed sympathizers of the pop melody and blues structure. It is the first song where the Cult was intentionally producing the term “hard rock.” So the first Cult song that is self-aware, but not in the glib, smirking fashion? A sincerity that would come to define the modern Blue Öyster Cult as irony, always cyclically out of fashion, was an up-and-comer’s game. The Cult reached a more mature passion by 1998.
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All “credible,” in short, as the reviews described.
Heaven Forbid embraced logical realism. It was the realism the Cult had developed in their decade touring the wilderness. They returned at a time when the vandals of the 1960s, the indulgences of the 1980s, and the sumptuousness of the 1980s had all flamed out. The milk-sup of New York that the Cult had fed on was dried up, but they lived on. Dharma and Bloom, at the helm as producers, were no longer trying to play catch-up. There is still that true, blue ominousness in there (such as with “Harvest Moon”), but the intentional pursuit of hits faded away. There was only the Cult standing eye to eye with the advent of the real modern world. Dharma put it in regard to how the Cult had become an eternally touring band, “We were definitely below the pop radar, where we remain, not that I care, it’s not really what we are about. I’ve no illusions at selling millions of albums. Any recording we do is for posterity, a historical record.”
Heaven Forbid, though, has suffered in retrospect due to position and appearance. An album placed near the end of the Cult’s lengthy discography, after a ten-year studio hiatus, understandably creates a hesitation for new listeners as digging so deep (and after so long!) is rarely rewarded. Heaven Forbid floats on the peripherals of the Cult’s better material, crowded out from the upper echelons of praise due to the Cult’s surplus of heavy hitters, but, visually, the album rots to high heaven. The commercial cover features the portrait of a degenerate farmer in the throes of either a mutagenic psychopathy or advanced-stage masturbatory dysfunction—the drooling lips and glassy stare make one wonder. The Hitchcock-esque terror of the threatened woman featured alongside is appropriate in the greater sense that she is now trapped, forever, in one of the grimiest 1990s ‘revival’ album covers. All unfortunate as the imagery was saddled on the Cult, with little warning, in hopes that playing into the band’s established ethos of terror would generate enthusiasm for the album. It only gimped the (mostly) solid material within. The Cult once again put their hearts out there, only to get butchered on the rack because of a bad selection of cover art. Blue Öyster Cult stares back now after more than twenty-five years. Quite literally, with an inflamed, glassy eye.
All real enough for me.
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Special thanks on this retrospective to Martin Popoff for his Agents of Fortune: The Blue Öyster Cult Story, the administrators at Hot Rails, and the disparate BÖC archivists across the Internet keeping alive more than fifty years of band history.
Read previous retrospectives here:
Blue Öyster Cult (1972) | Tyranny and Mutation (1973) | Secret Treaties (1974) | Agents of Fortune (1976) | Spectres (1977) | Mirrors (1979) | Cultösaurus Erectus (1980) | Fire of Unknown Origin (1981) | The Revölution by Night (1983) | Club Ninja (1985) | Imaginos (1988)
