CLUB NINJA

'Twas early 1986, me barely 15 years old, and a new Blue Oyster Cult release with a silly title and a goofy cover. I had only one BOC album, "The Revolution By Night", which I had been somewhat duped into buying because a friend said they were really heavy and the song "Take Me Away" seemed to affirm that. So I was hoping that a second attempt to hear heavy BOC would prove fruitful with this album. It was not. But was I disappointed? Baffled at first is more like it.

I wasn't sure what to make of this album. There were the hard rocking and heavy guitars but there were also bright, eighties pop synth sounds which I still cringe at to this day. There was dramatic music with really catchy vocal melodies but there were also electronic drums which I have never cared for much. I found certain songs intriguing as they offered something new or at least rare in my cassette collection. That jangly eighties guitar sound I didn't like actually sounded pretty good on "Perfect Water", and in spite of the keyboard sounds, I felt the song drawing me back for repeated listens, eventually becoming one of my favourite tracks on the album. It had a mysterious and also beautifully serene atmosphere to it. Not one band in my music collection at the time had a song like this.

Then there was "White Flags". A song packed with tension and moments of release sometimes simply through a keyboard effect but more so with the break into the chorus. One of my favourite parts was the organ bit that follows the, "Take me away! Yeeeaaahhh!" part. When I finally heard the original version recorded by the Leggatt Brothers, I was disappointed that there was no organ part.

"Shadow Warrior" was a wonderfully ominous and dark track with lyrical imagery typical of the band's works - a kind of future, science fiction / fantasy tale. And "Madness to the Method" had this dynamic piano solo in the song's dramatic conclusion. "Spy in the House of Night" also was not my usual cup of tea but somehow strangely attracted my ears. In fact, the only songs that I thought were a little silly were "Make Rock Not War" and "Beat 'Em Up", mostly for their atrocious meathead rock band-sounding titles. Musically, they were actually not so bad except for the keyboard sounds.

In truth, "Club Ninja" was to me an unfamiliar concoction of hard and heavy rock with pop sounds and at times an epic feel while at others very emotive and strong. Even songs that had goofy parts (are they really singing "Ooh-ga chaka" in "When The War Comes"?) were also interesting for their other aspects. Chorus voices. Slap bass. Longer tracks with meticulous attention to the details in the music. From a certain sonic point of view, this album would be most similar to Queensryche's "Rage for Order", though the two bands are quite different from one another.

I finally bought this album on CD and listened to it for the first time in about 30 years. I was surprised how much I remembered of the songs. I must have listened to this album more than I thought because I felt like I was listening to an old classic or an old favourite. True, I still flinch at some keyboards parts and "Beat 'Em Up" is still a goofy title. But I found that I actually really like this album! In fact, I think one of the things I appreciate about it now more than before is the prog element. In the mid-eighites, prog was carefully concealed beneath the pop flash of former prog kings or in the more complex music of some metal bands. "Club Ninja" on the other hand grasps hard and heavy rock, pop sounds and melodies, classic rock, and progressive flare (heavy organ and dramatic piano solos plus seven-minute songs with sci-fi and fantasy concepts) and sets them all out on the table.

The album was costly to produce and took nearly a year to put together under the strict guidance of visionary Sandy Pearlman. In the end, the results were probably more baffling to most people who couldn't make sense of what the band was trying to do. My opinion is that Blue Oyster Cult created an album of intelligent lyrical content, music of atmosphere, drama, energy, and dark and light, and many modern sounds that captured both the light, popular side and the harder-edged rock side.

Having this album back again, I appreciate it even more now after decades of exploring heavy and progressive music much, much further. Forget the pop elements. Songs like "White Flags", "Perfect Water", "Shadow Warrior", and "Madness to the Method" show a band who are not afraid to be serious and heavy, melodic, and more musically daring than a lot of bands in the eighties.