Songs like The Revenge Of Vera Gemini and Sinful Love definitely weigh it down a lot, but it remains one of the best albums of all time in my opinion. Absolutely worth the money

It’s been many years since I asked that question. I waited for the answer and I finally got it in 1975. When you’ve created a MASTERPIECE you must accept that it may not be possible to do anything better. You may not be able to top that shining moment of perfection. BOC tried. BOC failed. But no one else has ever even come close to topping SECRET TREATIES so BOC had nothing to be ashamed of. They still produced a fantastic album. 25 year old Michelangelo once sculpted a Pieta so beautiful that his contemporaries referred to him as “The Divine Michelangelo”. No one doubted his gift. I never doubted BOC would create another great album. The lightning of a divine light did not strike twice in the same way. BUT I still bought the vinyl (twice!) back in 1975. I worked two jobs then and sweat blood to buy that vinyl. I regret nothing. I am 70 now and had a life. BOC has always had a place in the soundtrack of my life. Of course SECRET TREATIES, in it’s entirety, is always there in the jukebox. But ETI, SUMMER, REAPER and DEBBIE DENISE also still get routine spins. Go on and buy it. Take it from an old man who once banged his 19 year old head with the best of them and is still twitching his head whenever he hears the rave up in the middle of REAPER.

“(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” is such a great song

I have mixed feelings about this album. The cover is great, of course. This band has some of the best covers in rock music. And I think about half of the album is really great, the hard rock songs, and some of them are my favorite Blue Oyster Cult songs of all time....This Ain’t The Summer of Love, The Revenge of Vera Gemini and Tattoo Vampire. And both of Donald Roeser’s songs are classics. It’s the more mellow and poppier songs that I don’t like, my least favorite being Al Lanier’s True Confessions, which he also sings. I think Debbie Denise and Tenderloin are pretty bad as well. Morning Final would have been a much better song if they didn’t have that guy at the end selling newspapers. What were they thinking? I still give the album four stars, for the songs that I love and for that great gatefold cover.

c o w b e l l s p o t t e d

Still listen to this song always will !!!

Blue Oyster Cult has always been a bit of an acquired taste for most. Their style defies definition with it’s mix of hard rock, pop, blues, and boogie. The band’s sinister imagery and eclectic song lyrics give most of their stuff a decidedly dark vibe as well. Agents of Fortune was a departure from the band’s three initial “black and white” albums, which were more straight ahead hard rock. Here the muscular guitars of Roeser and Bloom are mixed more prominently with Allen Lanier’s rather excellent keyboards, giving the record a more commercial feel. Songs like This Ain’t the Summer of Love, E.T.I., Sinful Love, and Tattoo Vampire still rock and will appeal to those fans of the the band’s earlier works. The real gems here are the classic rock hit Don’t Fear the Reaper, and The Revenge of Vera Gemini. Both are moody atmospheric numbers with thought provoking lyrics. Great headphone music. While the band would expand the boundaries of their sound even further on later releases, Agents remains a nice bridge between early 70’s and late 70’s BOC and is a good place to start for the novice listener.

"Agents" is justifiably considered BOC's flagship album, as it foregrounds all of the band's dark attributes: cryptic subject matter, sci-fi noir atmospherics, urban paranoia, gloomy mysticism, etc., all presented via some of the most striking and versatile arrangements in mid-70s rock. "Reaper" is the iconic cornerstone track, of course, sinister and sensual--featuring a now infamous wooden block percussive element to indicate horse hoof impacts, erroneously identified as a "cowbell" in an equally infamous SNL skit--but the album contains a wealth of substance and texture beyond this hit, and is expertly sequenced to boot. Check out future National Book Award winner Patti Smith's duet on space Goth trip "Vera Gemini," and decadent proto-metal gem "Tattoo Vampire," a powerhouse track championed by Lars Ulrich of Metallica. "Agents" is vintage Cult: smart, oblique, fascinating, sardonic, unnerving.

Great album just need a little more cowbell!

GOOOOD