Unknown Soldier

Overview
In the space of several years, BOC had gone from being a highly-acclaimed but inaccessible hard rock/proto metal (whatever you prefer) band, to that of a hugely commercial giant in their native USA and a top concert draw. The brilliance of their first three albums highlighted by the sophomore Tyranny and Mutation and then the monolithic third album Secret Treaties, had now given way to a far greater commercial sheen and pop flourishes on their music for their fourth album Agents of Fortune (see reviews for all these albums). This shift had largely come about thanks to the legendary “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” single from that album and the greater prominence of keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Allen Lainier within the band. On Agents of Fortune, the band had demonstrated a shift from their early trademark murky sound, to that of a more upbeat arena rock based one, and whilst that shift had been achieved on Agents of Fortune in most people’s eyes, in my opinion the results were somewhat dubious at times to say the least (as I’ve explained on that album review). The impressively named Spectres was quite simply the successor album to Agents of Fortune and its aim was to further cement the commercial appeal of the band, and continue from where Agents of Fortune left off. Again the vocal duties within the band are shared out and after the superb vocals of Buck Dharma on “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” he now takes greater responsibility on lead vocals once again and appears on three songs here, with the Bouchard brothers Joe and Albert taking four songs between them. This now left just four songs for main vocalist Eric Bloom, whose lion’s share of the vocals had been trimmed to re-accommodate Buck Dharma in the vocal department. The album was recorded at The Record Plant New York and unsurprisingly maintained the production crew from Agents of Fortune Sandy Pearlman, Murray Krugman and David Lucas. Again the album would be punctuated with some great guitar work and the often underrated Albert Bouchard on drums really stands out as well with some technical drumming.

Eric Bloom- Guitar/Vocals
Donald ‘Buck Dharma’ Roeser- Guitar/Vocals
Allen Lainier- Rhythm/Keyboards/Vocals
Joe Bouchard- Bass/Vocals
Albert Bouchard- Drums/ Vocals

Production- Sandy Pearlman, Murray Krugman and David Lucas

The Album
Godzilla- With a great starting riff this is one of the band’s best known songs and a tongue in cheek homage to the famous movie monster of the same name. The song is both penned and sung by Buck Dharma, and was a popular single at the time. Golden Age of Leather- With its carol sounding introduction, the song then puts in some potent guitar work and across the track Eric Bloom sounds more withdrawn than normal and delivers one of his underrated classics. Death Valley Nights- Starts off as a piano based track and the now fairly recognizable Albert Bouchard sings lead here. The song is tight and flowing and is later punctuated by some staunch guitar work. Searchin’ for Seline- Written by Allen Lainier hence the punchy piano work in the song and sung by Eric Bloom, again the song is another quality cut with some thumping bass. Fireworks- Starts off with the haunting melodies of “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and then mixes up the whole mixture with some upbeat and nostalgic sounding playing. R.U. Ready 2 Rock- One of the more straight-forward tracks on the album, which also happens to be one of the heaviest as well. Celestial the Queen- Bassist Joe Bouchard penned and sings lead here and it’s a catchy song that really captures the feel and spirit of the album. Goin’ Through the Motions- Super commercial in every aspect and probably the poorest track on the album, it was later to be covered by Bonnie Tyler and that says it all really! I Love the Night- A song true in spirit to “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper and sung by Buck Dharma. The song probably would’ve worked even better as the album closer with its layered harmonies and great touches. Nosferatu- The album closer is based around the infamous vampire and it’s a competent track, but tends to sound more like an in-album second side track than an actual album closer and could’ve swapped places with the previous track in this respect.

Verdict
BOC were always a highly and complex sounding band, so how does this multi-layered cake stand up to an inquisition? Firstly, I might be one of the few listeners to actually prefer Spectres over the more famous Agents of Fortune, largely because I find the feel and spirit of this album to be a more consistent and richer musical listen than its predecessor. Spectres is a quality album that often straddles the line between AOR and metal, and if you’re ok with the BOC sound, then you’ll be sure to dig this album! What may not be to everybody’s taste though, could well be the offbeat diverse elements that feature on the album and the lack of consistent flow from one song to another in terms of musical style and feel. This can be perfectly exemplified on the way “Godzilla” flows into the excellent “Golden Age of Leather” and then we hit the stylish and subdued “Death Valley Nights” and then the pacey funk infused “Searchin’ for Seline”. All of these songs are great cuts, but probably don’t segue together as they possibly should and could. The rest of the quality cuts on the album include the Joe Bouchard penned and sung “Celestial Queen” and the song shows that he always had a good ear for a catchy melody. Then there is the majestic and lovely sounding “I Love the Night” which shows the band truly grasping the qualities that a classic AOR cut should always have, quite simply the band could do real quality AOR when they wanted to. Not only were the band putting out a more accessible sound compared to their earlier stuff, but on a number of occasions, the band had given over to a much more humorous and easier going nature as well, this is perfectly exampled in songs like “Godzilla” which is a mixture of great humour and great riffs, and then there is the tongue-in-cheek “Nosferatu”. In essence though, Spectres captures a lot of the subject topics of old and just showcases them in a very different setting, showing just how multi-dimensional and creative this band always were. At the end of the day, Spectres is an album for BOC fans rather than the average music listener, which is an oddity in itself considering the commercial sounding nature of the band at this time, but then again BOC are possibly one of the biggest conundrums in the rock sphere. Basically Spectres is an enviable piece of work from one of the very best bands of the whole decade.

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