AAA 100% Analogue This LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head

Speakers Corner / Columbia  - KC 32017 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl 

Mastered by Rainer Mallard at Emil Berliner 

AAA 100% Analogue  - Limited Edition -  - Pressed  at Pallas 

his Speakers Corner LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only, from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head 30 Years pure Analogue

. Sonically, there’s plenty of throbbing riffs to grab any hard rocker by the throat. The Red and the Black is just one example, exhibiting macho guitars. Serious attitude was prevalent here and the group sounded as if they meant business,which they certainly did. It’s a stone cold classic and no mistake. - Paul Rigby The Audiophile Man 

 Let's look back nostalgically to the days when influential DJs presented their precious wares on the radio, which were lapped up by listeners and music pirates alike. That progressive, perhaps psycho, rockers such as the Blue Öyster Cult led a somewhat niche existence makes one all the more eager to listen to the truly awesome discs recorded by this group in their early days. An important start was made with the re-release of BÖC's "Secret Treaties" (Columbia KC 32858), which is now followed by "Tyranny And Mutation" - another great disc.

Although the band offers a mix of slightly subdued, milder pieces, the opening number " The Red & The Black" makes it fully clear that we are in for a dizzy roller-coaster ride here. Subsequently the Black side with its straightforward guitar riffs is mixed together with a complex melody and results in an amazingly colourful sound ("O.D.'d On Life Itself"), it is refreshingly naive, full of feisty complicated rock ("Baby Ice Dog"), and soars to celestial heights in "Wings Wetted Down" with its polyphonic male voices.

On Tyranny and Mutation, Blue Öyster Cult achieved the seemingly impossible: they brightened their sound and deepened their mystique. The band picked up their tempos considerably on this sophomore effort, and producers Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman added a lightning bolt of high-end sonics to their frequency range. Add to this the starling lyrical contributions of Pearlman, rock critic Richard Meltzer, and poet-cum-rocker Patti Smith (who was keyboardist Allen Lanier's girlfriend at the time), the split imagery of Side One's thematic, "The Red" and Side Two's "The Black," and the flip-to-wig-city, dark conspiracy of Gawlik's cover art, and an entire concept was not only born and executed, it was received.

The Black side of Tyranny and Mutation is its reliance on speed, punched-up big guitars, and throbbing riffs such as in "The Red and the Black," "O.D'd on Life Itself," "Hot Rails to Hell," and "7 Screaming Diz-Busters," all of which showcased the biker boogie taken to a dizzyingly extreme boundary; one where everything flies by in a dark blur, and the articulations of that worldview are informed as much by atmosphere as idea. This is screaming, methamphetamine-fueled rock & roll that was all about attitude, mystery, and a sense of nihilistic humor that was deep in the cuff. Here was the crossroads: the middle of rock's Bermuda triangle where BÖC marked the black cross of the intersection between New York's other reigning kings of mystery theater and absurd excess: the Velvet Underground and Kiss -- two years before their first album -- and the " 'it's all F#$&%* so who gives a rat's ass" attitude that embodied the City's punk chic half-a-decade later. On the Red Side, beginning with the syncopated striations of "Baby Ice Dog," in which Allen Lanier's piano was as important as Buck Dharma's guitar throb, elements of ambiguity and bluesy swagger enter into the mix.

Eric Bloom was the perfect frontman: he twirled the words around in his mouth before spitting them out with requisite piss-and-vinegar, and a sense of decadent dandy that underscored the music's elegance, as well as its power. He was at ease whether the topic was necromancy, S&M, apocalyptic warfare, or cultural dissolution. By the LP's end, on "Mistress of the Salmon Salt," Bloom was being covered over by a kind of aggressively architected psychedelia that kept the '60s at bay while embracing the more aggressive, tenser nature of the times. While BÖC's Secret Treaties is widely recognized as the Cult's classic album, one would do well to consider Tyranny and Mutation in the same light.

After the death of 'Lemmy' Kilmister in 2015, we can now enjoy only one group with a heavy-metal Umlaut in its name. But who wants to wait around until some radio DJ puts this great chunk of meaty rock’n’roll on the turntable?
 
Recording: 1972 at Columbia Studios, New York City, by Tim Geelan
Production: Murray Krugman & Sandy Pearlman

Musicians:
Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, vocals, guitar
Allen Lanier, keyboards, rhythm guitar
Eric Bloom, vocals, stun guitar, synthesizers
Joe Bouchard, bass guitar, keyboards, vocals
Albert Bouchard, drums, vocals

Selections:
Side 1: (The Black)
1. The Red & The Black
2. O.D.'d On Life Itself
3. Hot Rails To Hell
4. 7 Screaming Diz-Busters
Side 2: (The Red)
5. Baby Ice Dog
6. Wings Wetted Down
7. Teen Archer
8. Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)

Recorded 1972 at Columbia Studios, New York City