Signing on with
Deep Purple/
Black Sabbath producer
Martin Birch,
Blue Öyster Cult made more of a guitar-heavy hard rock album in
Cultosaurus Erectus after flirting with pop ever since the success of
Agents of Fortune. (They also promoted this album by going out on a co-headlining tour with
Sabbath.) Gone are the female backup singers, the pop hooks, the songs based on keyboard structures, and they are replaced by lots of guitar solos and a beefed-up rhythm section. But the band still were not generating strong enough material to compete with their concert repertoire, so they found themselves in the bind of being a strong touring act unable to translate that success into record sales. [
Cultosaurus was re-released on CD in 2013.] ~ William Ruhlmann