FIRE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN

After having been stunned by the live release, Extraterrestrial Live, I knew I had to check out some of the studio offerings by this legendary hard rock band. One of these purchases was Fire of Unknown Origin, which was the studio album Blue Oyster Cult promoted with the aforementioned live release.

Extraterrestrial Live showcased three songs out of Fire of Unknown Origin, these were Burnin' For You, Veteran of the Psychic Wars and Joan Crawford. Undoubtly the best songs from this album, however as good as they are in the studio, the live versions definitely beat them, specially the live version of Veteran of the Psychic Wars with the extended guitar solo and with the greater dark atmosphere.

The rest of the album is still pretty decent and enjoyable if you like 80's hard rock, stuff like Moving Pictures by Rush which was also released in 1981. The song Don't Turn Your Back even reminds me of Moving Pictures with the synths and cooled-down riffs. However, just like that release by Rush, Fire of Unknown Origin has the same issue of not having much power due to the focus on the synths and not featuring very strong melodies/riffs.

Still, the catchy and clever factor on many of the songs, including the title track and the four aforementioned songs make this album worthwhile and good in general. When it comes to recommending this album, I would say purchase Extraterrestrial Live first which has the best songs from this album in better shape and also has some of Blue Oyster Cult's early classics.

3 stars: good album with some clever catchy hooks, but the 80's factor harms a bit the songwriting. Though if you're an 80's rock fan, I'm sure you'll find this record top-notch.

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