My ears will melt, and then my eyes

Blue Oyster Cult - Blue Oyster Cult - 1972

BOC are one of those bands I have a couple of albums of, but never really took the time to really listen to, so this, their debut album, was quite a surprise to me.
It's hard for me to categorise this album and, not knowing much else they've done, it's also hard to compare to their material.
At first listen, it seemed intriguing, with some interesting moments, but maybe a bit flat. But I think this album can really grow on you, and the more I listen to it, the more I like it.
The styles in the songs go from straight-forward rock to crazier moments of psychedelia and, more strikingly, some moments remind me a bit of 80s goth music, the sound of the guitars, I think.
I will have to listen to this album quite more, I think, to fully get into it. But it's a great album, and I really enjoyed listening to it finally.

• The 80s vibe I feel also comes from Eric Bloom's vocals, that remind me a bit, i think, of the vocalist of a relatively obscure 80s goth band called Lords of the New Church. 
• The lyrics are strange, for the most part, and sometimes pretty much meaningless. There's a song called "She's as Beautiful as a Foot", whatever that means.
• One of the best tracks, is a ballad, "Then Came the last Days of May" that, while it does sound a bit dated, it's beautifully done and quite sad. It was the first track that stuck out for me.
• Another great track is "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll", which has a lot to thank Black Sabbath, especially the guitar riffs, although as everything in this album, they've done their own thing and I think it has a couple of interesting and cool rhythm changes. 

Only you outshine the rest

Paul McCartney & Wings - Wild Life - 1971

I have been trying to remember this quote I read once in a book, I think, by Clive Barker. It said something like "real love is boring", and then it went on to explain how it is actually boring for everybody who is around the two people in love. 

I thought a lot about that quote while listening to this album again, because a lot of the time it seems as if we were with this annoyingly affectionate couple who are so into one another that everybody else feels left out. 

I think that's one problem with the album, but that's the lesser issue. A bigger problem is that it would seem as Paul was trying way too hard to avoid being the good, clean cut boy he was with The Beatles, and intended to project a "crazier" image and, also, the image of a guy interested in more serious topics. 

The album is a mixture of both concepts and, I have to say, that no matter how annoying and cheesy the love songs are, they're the better part of the album. 

This one was universally hated by critics, but for some reason even now, after not listening to it in longer than I dare to admit, I still like it a lot at times. 

• The lyrics of "Tomorrow" have a line that goes: "holding hands we both abandon sorrow". It's so perfectly cheesy that I actually love it. I also think the song is one of the best of the album, with McCartney doing what he does best: beautiful melodies.

Faintly the dream of a true and wonderful world

Scorpions - Lonesome Crow - 1972

Way way long before they became extremely famous in the late 1980s and 90s, Scorpions had a long and prolific career most of us got to know retrospectively.
This is a band I like quite a lot, and I'm moderately familiar with their discography, but I can't say that I was too familiar with their debut album, or that I had paid much attention to it.
And probably the reason has to do with the fact that this is barely recognisable as Scorpions. It sounds milder and more melodic, for one, and Klaus Meine's voice sounds so much flatter than it would later do that I actually had to check to make sure it was him singing. At moments it's clearly him, though.

This was the only album with Michael Schenker as an official member of the band. and is really not a bad album. If this was one of those completely unknown bands I have stumbled across before, I probably would be more excited. But being Scorpions we know for a fact that the best is certainly yet to come. 

It definitely is an interesting listen from a historical point of view, and it's great to find some small elements that foresee what the band would do, even if they're few and far between.

• The best song of the album is, definitely, "In Search of the Peace of Mind". It's supposed to be the first song that Michael Schenker ever wrote (co-composed with the rest of the band). He was 16 at the time, which is quite remarkable.