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BUCKETHEAD - PIKE 48 - HIDE IN THE PICKLING JAR
7th album out of 60 in 2014 and 78th overall
All sounds brought to you by Buckethead and all instrumental
This one has 4 tracks that clock in at 30:52
“Hiding In The Pickling Jar” (9:21) begins with a heavy bluesy rock guitar line before breaking into funk rock and then becomes haunted house guitar lick and then just a funky bass line and then a keyboard spooky riff and then wah-wah infused funky bass. Well, you get the picture. This changes things up every few measures with funk, blues and avant-garde strangeness. The steady drum beat keeps it all churning along fairly steadily but there are some strange time sig changes that serve as transitions to other segments but basically this marches on in 4/4 timing while changing the whole atmospheric mood setting often. Around the four minute mark it becomes heavy distorted metal and then it starts changing things up in a metal context. As the track progresses it gets loud, it gets mellow, it changes up the timing a little and ventures all over the place. This one is pretty cool and probably the only song title ever to reference a “Pickling Jar!”
“Countersunk” (7:41) begins less frenetic with a slow, clean and mellow guitar and then breaks into a higher distorted guitar riff and then reverts back to the clean guitar and then back to the grungy guitar riff and it pretty much follows this pattern. The melody is pretty much the same and nothing exciting actually. This is very much like a million other PIKE tracks only the different styles have been mixed up which makes it more interesting. It does add more bluesy elements and production effects as it proceeds with a heavy echoey almost foghorn type sounding type of distortion. This one turns out to be varied enough to be pretty cool itself but not as good as track one
“Squirrel On A Perch” (3:45) is a funky rocker that reminds me of the best of the 70s with a heavy funky bass line and lots of guitar licks dancing around. While not bursting with originality, it is a pretty cool slice of funk rock that immediately brings Hendrix to mind
“Sabertooth Saw” (10:05) starts out as another funky rocker. This one is trades off heaviness with cleaner funkiness. It has a basic melodic development and doesn’t deviate too much from it throughout its run. It has some moments of staccato chord heaviness and other heavy production induced fuzziness freak outs but really just sticks to the melody underneath it all. This one is ok but not terribly exciting either. Certainly not worthy of its time length.
This PIKE starts out fairly good with the first two tracks being of interest but the last two while not bad aren’t super exciting either. There’s enough on this one to call it good but not essential. Especially after a super exciting album like PIKE 47