SECRET TREATIES

Third and most important album from BOC, at least as far as progheads are concerned, because most of the general public will tell you, the upcoming albums will sell a lot more albums. While ST is considered in BOC's B&W trilogy (and before the double live inter- chapter album), this album is sensibly different to its predecessor. First it's sooooo much netter in terms of material, but it's also an album where Lanier's KB are making a difference, hence the proghead's approval. Unchanged line-up, label and producer, the album is again with a B&W (along with some red) artwork presenting an early supersonic military airplane. The songwriting is again fairly democratic and producer Pearlman still "interferes" in four tracks, but strangely enough, it is drummer Albert Bouchard that gets five credits

Starting on Bouchard's Career Of Evil and a solid dose of Lanier's organ, the album might just be considered their proggier ones of the 70's, the album is off to a blazing lift off, especially with the superb follow-up Subhuman and then the blazing guitar-laden Dominance & Submision. Only the slightly weaker semi-title track (ME 262 is the Messerschimidt reactor airplane of the artwork), but there is no other tracks that can come close to the album's title.

The flipside's opener Cretins is thankfully short, and despite ending well Harvester Of Eyes isn't that successful either, but the album closes on two all-time BOC classics. Indeed Telepaths (some piano in BOC?) and especially the album-lengthier Astronomy are both linked together and the latter's superb piano intro and mid-tempo melody and superb mid- section?. It's a killer.

The remastered reissue comes with a colourized version of the artwork and a bunch of bonus tracks, but I have never heard them. While I would certainly not call ST a prog classic, it's certainly their most preferred with the public preferred, like Argus, Rising, Paranoid are in their respective discography.