BUCKETHEAD — Pike 125 - Along The River Bank (review)

BUCKETHEAD — Pike 125 - Along The River Bank album cover Album · 2015 · Progressive Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
siLLy puPPy
PIKE 125 - ALONG THE RIVER BANK is the 24th album released by BUCKETHEAD in 2015. This one has six tracks and the total time clocks in at 29:44. Once again all are instrumentals and all musical duties are handled by BUCKETHEAD himself.

Well, i’m onto this chicken lover’s game. After the extremely avant-garde and surprisingly adventurous “Pike 124 - Rotten Candy Candy” we get a more relaxed and “normal” sounding album. It starts out with that nice relaxing “Colma” sound which immediately makes me wanna throw the one star bomb, but after a while the beginning title track becomes a slow rocker, however after the wild and experimental of the previous album this one sounds almost too tame but yet it has a nice alternative metal kind of sound to it despite not being so different from other PIKES. Other than the 11:48 title track (which wears out its welcome) the others are quite short by PIKE standards all being less than five minutes.

“Mind Train” picks up the tempo a bit but is basically an instrumental metal rocker that has a riff or two then repeats with some melodic soloing here and there. Meh.

“View Masters” is something different. Kind of an electronically manipulated funk riff starts it out and then a more grungy oddly timed riff takes over. There seems to be a trade off between these ideas with a few riff changes that include electronic freakiness and guitar solos. It ends as very melodic metal reminding me of shredders like Marty Friedman and other neoclassical axe masters. This one’s pretty cool.

“All Ashore” is thrashy groove metal with an energized riff that trades off with some soloing. Kinda reminds me a bit of White Zombie in the riff department. Not bad.

“Starboard Bow” is a thrashy one with a weird little time sig riff. It alternates with solos and other more straight forward thrash riffs. Great energetic soloing ending. This one is pretty cool actually.

“Shell” is a 1:34 boring rocker.

There are a lot of progressive riffs and ideas on this release but there is also a lot of meh. When it’s hot it’s real hot but unfortunately most of the time…… it’s not.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Hin helga kvöl Atmospheric Sludge Metal
SÓLSTAFIR
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Cycles of Suffering Black Metal
BURIAL OATH
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Suns of Perdition - Chapter IV: To Shadow Zion Black Metal
PANZERFAUST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Facilis Descensus Averno Death Metal
SAEVUS FINIS
Buy this album from MMA partners
Merciless Crossover Thrash
BODY COUNT
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

DAWN OF REVENGE - Sanctuary [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - Farewell [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - Curtain of Death - [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - Vengeance [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - I Need You [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 5 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed