So after Revolution By Night failed to recapture the success of Fire Of Unknown Origin, I would hazard to guess that the band, their management, their label, and, well, just about everyone connected to them, scrambled to figure out what went wrong. RBN had been slick and polished in every conceivable way, bringing BOC up to date with this new decade called "the '80's", so what was the problem? With the benefit of hindsight, I think most BOC fans would agree that it was precisely that slick production which had alienated the band's core audience by moving the band away from their signature sound.
However, back in 1984/85, the powers that be who were holding the reigns of BOC's careers, and, perhaps, even some of the band members themselves, had come to the conclusion that the band was out of their depth with this new decade, and were creatively running a little dry, and thus were in need of some outside assistance. Only some professional help, it was surely reasoned, could restore BOC to the success of Don't Fear The Reaper and Burning For You. As a result, nearly half of RBN's followup, Club Ninja, was written without any input from the band at all.
The problem with this is not necessarily a lack of quality, it is a lack of consistency. Only five of the album's nine tracks actually being written by BOC's traditional writing team, the remaining four songs have a distinctly different feel; not really bad exactly, but certainly not BOC. There are at least three different bands on this record, making it sound less like a single cohesive album and more like a mix-tape. BOC had always been a relatively diverse band throughout their careers, but on this album, with so much of the music being composed by others, they sound borderline schizophrenic.
The album starts out competently enough with the driving White Flags. The song is pretty cool, there's some interesting melodies and a few little nifty keyboard flourishes here and there, but something is clearly not right. That "something" would be the lack of any Blue Oyster Cult in the writing. Bloom sounds a little off here, probably because he is singing material written by someone he's not familiar with. Be assured, it's a great song, but it's pretty far from the BOC that we all know and love. These two problems, Bloom's lack of comfort and BOC playing non-BOC songs, are reoccurring issues throughout the record. The second track, Dancin' In The Ruins, is particularly bizarre, because it sounds like an imitation of Blue Oyster Cult! Again, it's still a pretty cool song, but hearing a song crafted deliberately to copy BOC's previous hits by musicians-for-hire only to be recorded by BOC for a BOC album is just plain weird!
The non-BOC tracks are rounded out by two songs written by Bob Halligan Jr. of Judas Priest/Lee Aaron/ Kix fame. Apparently, in the couple years between RBN and CN, BOC and their label had become aware of the new phenomenon called Heavy Metal blowing up all over MTV and radio at the time. While BOC had historically been associated with the heavy metal label, they were never really the same sort of metal as the bands that were dominating the media back in the mid '80's. For what it's worth, Make Rock Not War and Beat 'Em Up are pretty damn good 80's metal tunes, but are totally wrong for BOC. If you want the proof, you need to look no further then Lee Aaron's 1985 release, Call Of The Wild, where Beat Em' Up makes an appearance, and sounds much more at home with heavier guitars and Aaron's she-Dio roar rather then Bloom's..... I don't even know what he's trying to do here. I do like the old-school metal organ BOC adds to the song, but that is where my complements of the BOC version end. As for Make Rock Not War, Halligan should have given this song to Aaron as well; she could have done it justice, while here, it just sounds strange and out of place.
Now getting to the songs that BOC actually wrote, they are for the most part, quite good, and stand up pretty well compared to the band's established discography. Perfect Water is pure BOC, and it is this song rather then Dancin' In The Ruins that is the true successor to songs like Don't Fear The Reaper and Burnin' For You. Spy In The House Of The Night sounds a bit like it could be the bluesier lost sibling of the title track from Fire Of Unknown Origin. When The War Comes could have been one of the band's greats... were it not for the cringe-worthy "ooka choka" chant and the totally superfluous Howard Stern narration. It still has some of the band's best harmonies, though, so it's not totally ruined. Shadow Warrior is a bit more rocking then the usual BOC, but sounds much more natural for the band then the Bob Halligan songs mentioned earlier, and excellently showcases a more 80's metal side to BOC. I love the keyboards here, especially the doomy organ in the slower sections. The final track, Madness To The Method is just fucking epic. Strange that an album with such a severe identity crisis as this would end with such a strong yet lovely number.
So what is my final verdict for Club Ninja? Well, I can't say I hate it. There are some really good songs here. The main problem with this record is that with only a little more then half of it being actually written by BOC, it has that 80's mix-tape quality I mentioned earlier. I said of Revolution By Night that it was better judged simply as music rather then as a BOC record. Well, that is exponentially true of this album, especially since much of the album was not written by BOC at all! That doesn't make those non-BOC songs bad songs, they were just used on the wrong album for the wrong band. The five songs on here that were actually written by the band would have made a pretty solid EP. As is, this record remains, in my mind, a mostly enjoyable, if very inconsistent oddity in the BOC discography, less of an album and more of a collection of various 80's rock songs. Not bad by any means. Just don't go in expecting a single cohesive BOC record.
Topic: Blue Öyster Cult Discography: Curse of the Hidden Mirror (Read 44134 times)
