matzaballman's Full Review: Flat Out by Buck Dharma
I must say, I'm very surprised to see a listing for this album on Epinions.Flat Out was released in 1982 and has been out of print for a very long time. I had been trying to find a copy of this in any form...on CD, cassette or vinyl.... for the last two years before finally finding it on vinyl at a CD and Record Fair a few months back. Last year, a friend of mine loaned me his copy and I tried to tape it, but the tape player, which I bought used, ran too slow and therefore recorded the thing at a much higher speed, so I got a Chipmunks version of it!( I found out while writing this review that this album has finally been released on CD, so if you've been trying to find it, your search is over. It also explains why I found a listing for it!)
O.K....who IS Buck Dharma?
Buck Dharma, whose real name is Donald Roeser, is the lead guitarist for the hard rock band Blue Oyster Cult. B.O.C. are still making albums, albeit not very good ones, and Buck Dharma is still with them. Though Eric Bloom is B.O.C.'s lead vocalist, almost everyone from the original line-up sang, including good old Buck, especially now, since he writes over half of their new material. Bloom has a tough, leathery rock-n-roll voice, while Buckeye has a much more smooth, lighter voice, which lends itself very well to more mellow and dreamy stuff. Buck was responsible for writing some of B.O.C.'s most popular songs, like Don't Fear The Reaper, Godzilla, and Burning For You, the last one being a collaboration with Richard Meltzer.( He originally wanted to save Burning For You for his solo album, but his band mates insisted it be a B.O.C. song). Roeser was also responsible for writing such great album cuts like (Then Came)The Last Days Of May, The Vigil and I Love The Night.
SO...given what a good track record Roeser had with Blue Oyster Cult and how tough this record has been to find, it would be nice if were were a bit better.The tunes here are rather lightweight and poppy, nowhere near as heavy as some of B.O.C.'s harder rocking material and not on the same level and not quite as memorable as most of songs that Roeser did with Blue Oyster cult...which is a shame!
The songs are:
1. Born To Rock
2. That Summer Night
3. Cold Wind
4. Your Loving Heart
5. Five Thirty Five
6. Wind, Weather and Storm
7. All Tied Up
8. Anwar's Theme
9. Come Softly To Me
Lyrically, the songs deal with the weather, as evidenced by the song titles...be it "cold winds", "hot summer nights" and "storms". There is a song about a heart transplant(Your Loving Heart), even though musically it's the least interesting tune here! Blue Oyster Cult fans may be disappointed...there are no songs about scary monsters on this album!
There are a number of forgettable songs on this and a few clunkers. My least favorite song is the cover of Come Softly To Me, which was originally done by The Fleetwoods. The version here is more mellow than the original and in my opinion nowhere near as good. Definitely not the way one would expect the album to end! Wind, Weather and Storm, with it's near fifties doo-wop singing, is another wimpy pop song and unintentionally silly.
Things that I liked? Well, the first song, Born To Rock, is...like it's title suggests....a rocking tune. Buck gets in some very fast guitar licks, the chorus is darn catchy, the verses have an interesting vocal melody and some hard rock riffing(?). Last but not most, the rhythm section for the original Alice Cooper group, drummer Neal Smith and bassist Dennis Dunaway, play on the song. Smith also helps write the lyrics for it and plays on the next song That Summer Night. Cold Wind is my favorite song on the album. It's a very pleasant, mellow love song, with some terrific singing and some very emotional lead guitar playing. Musically, it's along the lines of I Love The Night and (Then Came) The Last Days Of May. Five Thirty Five is an upbeat and catchy rock-n-roll song and reminds me of a few songs from the B.O.C. album The Revolution By Night, in terms of the guitar playing and the production.
I'm eventually going to have to buy this on CD, because there is a repeating skip at the end of All Tied Up on my vinyl copy....which makes it so I rarely ever listen to the next track, the instrumental Anwar's Theme, from...what I sampled....doesn't sound like anything special!
........Overall..........
This album is for die-hard Blue Oyster Cult fans like myself who have been searching for this since the beginning of lunchtime. Not bad, but nothing special, either!
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