There has never been a photograph of the Blue Oyster Cult on the cover of one of their albums, and there is a very good reason for that. The reason has to do with non-jibing of image and reality. You can pretty well figure what anybody who puts out albums with titles like Tyranny & Mutation is supposed to look like, and the BOC, though they try hard, simply don’t have the physical chops to totally carry through their producers’ grand plan for total assault. In fact, three out of five of them look like little boys. Street-scrabbling boys, but nonetheless.

Bearing their hype in mind, however,