siLLy puPPy BUCKETHEAD (as Bucketheadland) / Pike 256 - Meteor Firefly Net / 13th release of 2017 / All instrumental / Contains 4 tracks / Clocks in at 29minutes 42seconds / everything played by Buck-buck-buckethead

“Image From The Void” (5:53) enter the slow and echoey guitar with a slight distortion and joining it is a bass and drum that weaves a melody and steady rhythm that maintains a somewhat slow pace as a lead guitar embellishes the melody even more. After a slight slow breakdown the melody picks up steam and the distorted chords hold for a while as the other instruments take a break. Nice guitar work but predictable chord progressions and nothing remotely surprising. Nice track but nothing outstandingly interesting either “Mountainous Mine” (7:08) begins slow and sweet with twangy clean guitar, intermittent bass and cymbals with an ambient backdrop but then abruptly changes into a mid tempo rocker with somewhat of a swinging sensation as the power riffs rock and roll. The track has all the traditional song fixings as it has somewhat of a chorus / verse / bridge type of construction although the main emphasis is on the melody and the guitar licks, fills and solos that embellish it. Ultimately it ends up wearing out its welcome despite an ok way of kicking things off

“Meteor Firefly Net” (9:56) also begins with a slow and almost folky type of clean guitar with an ambient backdrop albeit the bass and drum slowly ooze in early on. The guitar then breaks into some sort of rockabilly type riff before erupting into metal riffs and screeching solos. The chord progressions make interesting melodic build ups that change keys and time sigs occasionally as well. Everything builds to a frenetic crescendo and then suddenly changes back to the soft and serene elevator folk that began the track but of course, this is a BH PIKE and not for long. It erupts full fire into blistering metal riffs and guitar wankery once again but then has some progressive changes where it keeps the monotony at bay and the interesting mood enhancing elements fresh and exciting. Once again the fury is extinguished by placid dreamy clean guitar interludes with floating ambience before inevitably, you guessed it! Back into the moshpit where dragons bang their heads in the dead of night. This title track is by far the most sophisticated on the PIKE and despite having an oft dreaded lengthy time length has more than enough oomph to keep this one on full attention alert throughout its entirety. Excellent track!!!

“Nail Bridge” (6:45) starts with an unusual heavy riff that sounds like a progressive metal version of a cartoon theme song and then alternates the heavy riffs with higher register licks. After a bit of energy is expended it slows down and does a little melodic dance with clean guitar, bass and less frenetic drums. Of course nothing lasts long in BHland so as you probably guessed, IT GETS LOUD AGAIN!!! This one is pretty cool and it’s all because of the strange exotic musical scale that is utilized to give a rather bizarre feel to the whole thing. Another winner!

This one is a mixed bag. I find the first two tracks rather mediocre but not horrible either. The last two tracks are quite creative and deliver a musical punch. Very nice indeed and a rare glimpse into BH’s ability to deliver pleasing melodies with unorthodox creativity turned up to the max. I wish the whole PIKE was like these two finales. Since together they constitute almost 2/3 of the PIKE i’ll give this one a 3 but it would be higher if the first two excited me in any way