Spectres by Blue Oyster Cult

Spectres, Blue Öyster Cult's fifth album, landed on Columbia in November 1977, with Sandy Pearlman, the band's manager and one of its key lyric writers, producing at the Record Plant. The Long Island crew was in its classic shape: Buck Dharma on lead guitar, Eric Bloom on lead vocals and "stun guitar", Allen Lanier on keyboards and rhythm guitar, Joe Bouchard on bass and Albert Bouchard on drums.

The monster in the room is "Godzilla", a stomping, grinning riff that became one of their biggest hits and a fixture of their concerts. That blend of heavy rock, psychedelic haze and tongue-in-cheek menace is pure BÖC, and the sleeve shows off the lasers they were firing across the stage at the time. It went gold in January 1978, and a 2007 remaster added four unreleased outtakes from the sessions.

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