BUMBLEFOOT — Hands (review)

Album · 1998 · Progressive Metal

5/5 · 2013-12-22
siLLy puPPy

RON THAL adopted a new name on his 3rd album and from here on is known as BUMBLEFOOT, which is a bacterial infection in animal feet! The name was taken from his first album, THE ADVENTURES OF BUMBLEFOOT and he celebrates his new found freedom from Shrapnel Records by releasing HANDS on his very own label Hermit Records. As with the last album brother Jeff Thal is back on drums as well as the guest musicians on cello, sax and trombone. Bumblefoot once again handles all duties on guitars, bass and vocals.

The musical maestro scores perfectly again with 13 strong tracks. We're treated to a journey from one satisfying track to another with the sound clearly in his own prog metal camp this time around. The difference between this album and the two previous ones released as RON THAL is that the songs have a more cohesive connection. Every song is progressive metal with some funkiness and plenty of unorthodox additions since BUMBLEFOOT is a master of great songwriting, great performance and keeping things interesting. Harder to describe individual tracks because they sound more alike but i'll give it a go.

1 Hands..... A song about liberation! Reflective on his newly found independence. Starts out rather slow and builds up to one of his signature solos. Indicative of his strong songwriting skills with progressive and virtuosic parts.

2 Swatting Flies...... Nice metal riffing. Kinda funky riffing.

3 What I Knew..... Nice Rage Against The Machine type verses with sung choruses containing horns. Jazz interludes. Solos.

4 Shrunk..... Heavy guitar. An aggressive type rapping alternates with strange singing. Prog metal

5 Dummy..... Half rapped / half sung lyrics with heavy guitar alternates with lyrics with drums alone.

6 Chair Ass..... Interesting riff with cymbal heavy drums and rapped lyrics starts out. Whispered lyrics with shredded riff alternates. Heavy guitars, scorching solo. Whoah!

7 Noseplugs..... Vocalized percussion backdrop while proggy feeling heavy guitar melody runs its course. Guitar drops with emphasized frontal lyrics and jazzy interludes....

8 Vomit..... Rapped lyrics with funky metal guitar alternates with heavy guitar riffing and guitar solo of course

9 Brooklyn Steakhouse..... Cool prog timings. Alternates between two entirely different styles. First is a heavy guitar turning into cellos riffing. Then heavy dissonant guitars. Then repeats. Cool heavy chorus. Cool solo. Just cool

10 Drunk..... Slowed down track about exhaling beer and restasting nachos

11 Backfur..... Beefy funky bass verses with short heavy guitar and cello based doowop choruses. Clever lyrics

12 Tuesday in Nancy..... Ballad about death. Sounds like it was inspired by Cannonball Adderley's “Autumn Leaves”

13 Dirty Pant'loons..... Very cool prog timings with fast furious metal riffing. About shittin' yer pants. Freekin' hilarious

69 Cactus (hidden track)..... That's right, this is track #69. Tracks 14-68 are all 3 seconds long of silence

99 Trainwreck (hidden track)..... Same thing. Tracks 70-98 are 3 seconds long of silence

For me, the third masterpiece in a row from this amazingly diverse musician who can mix everything musical and pull it off in a way that leaves me in awe. The ultimate fusionist