ALBERT BOUCHARD (Blue Oyster Cult) – Re-Imaginos (2020)

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT’s founder member ALBERT BOUCHARD is releasing his fresh, new version of “Re Imaginos” through his own imprint label, RockHeart Records. The album is Albert’s re-imagining of the 1988 BLUE ÖYSTER CULT LP “Imaginos”, which was originally intended as Albert’s solo album.
As Albert explains: “Most BOC fans know at this point that ‘Imaginos’ was supposed to be my solo album. Some people think it’s the best BOC album, others think it’s not a ‘true’ BOC album. In either case, they’re right. I made this new album for them so that they can hear a more properly realized version of the tale.”
An Eighties landmark re-made and remodeled with great results.

You get the sense that Bouchard, now seventy three, sees the Imaginos (the original album) as something of an albatross around the neck of his career and here, in the twilight of his creative days, grasps the chance once and for all to render this album, which he himself always imagined to be a solo project, as he always saw it.

Without actually residing in the artist’s mind, it’s difficult to say for sure. It’s certainly different to the BÖC version, that’s for sure.
Shorn of the bells and whistles of it’s Eighties production, and with a running order you sense actually enables the listener to make sense of what’s happening, it certainly seems to be rendered here as Bouchard intended when he and Sandy Pearlman (BÖC manager/producer/lyricist) started working on the project nearly fifty years ago.

The version of ‘Astronomy’ featured here, for instance, is closer to the fragile strangeness of the take on the song recorded for 1974’s Secret Treaties than the galloping, slightly metallised version featured on the Imaginos album when it finally emerged after a six year gestation period in 1988.
On the flipside, the riff-heavy ‘The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein’s Castle at Weisseria’ – 1988 vintage – certainly benefited from the Jim Steinman-esque sturm und drang of it’s eighties incarnation. Here it’s done more earthy, classic rock.

The sound and the feel of Imaginos in 2020 does seem right. The rock pairing of ‘Del Rio Song’ and ‘Gil Blanco County’ (the second of which finds itself back in favor, having been omitted in 1988) both stand out, and Manowar fans will be pleased to find out that Ross The Boss contributes stinging guitars to opening highlight ‘I Am The One You Warned Me Of’.

This time around the album flows, and it’s the quality of the songwriting rather than the gloss of the production that leaves the most lasting impression on the listener.
Imaginos may be the album that closed the curtains on BÖC’s ‘classic’ period, but here at last it gets the chance to speak for itself and maybe atone for some of the resentment long term fans might still harbour towards the project.
Highly Recommended

01 – I Am The One You Warned Me Of
02 – Del Rio Song
03 – In The Presence Of Another World
04 – Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein…
05 – Girl That Love Made Blind
06 – Astronomy
07 – Imaginos
08 – Gil Blanco County
09 – Blue Oyster Cult
10 – Black Telescope
11 – Magna of Illusion
12 – Les Invisibles

Pre Order:
www.amazon.co.uk/Re-Imaginos-Albert-Bouchard/dp/B08HGZWBKX