BUCKETHEAD — Pike 244 - Out Orbit (review)

BUCKETHEAD — Pike 244 - Out Orbit album cover

Album · 2017 · Avant-garde Metal

4/5 · 2017-01-14
siLLy puPPy

BUCKETHEAD (as Bucketheadland) / Pike 244 - Out Orbit / 1st release of 2017/ All instrumental / Contains 4 tracks / Clocks in at 27minutes 57seconds / everything played by Buck-buck-buckethead

“Invisible Railroad” (4:35) the first PIKE of 2017 finds the chicken lover in a feisty mood as this one starts out on full electrical output and excessive decibelage in full action with thrash metal guitar riffs whizzing by at the speed of light. It also shows the playful side is still in tact after a less than stellar 2016. BH changes styles up often ranging from thrash metal to alternative metal and even slows things down into clean echoey space guitar territory. Also on board are Van Halen type riffs, bluesy soloing and a few proggy time sig freak outs. Great track and i hope this presages great things to come

“To Infinity And Beyond (dedicated to Craig Sager) (4:05) starts with the echoey clean guitar groove with some spacey guitar effects that overlap. A nice melodic development unfolds as sound effects come and go that augment the grooves. There is a nice production that is as glossy and shiny as a new penny at the bottom of an acid bath. Every little sound is crystal clear and the mixing of the disparate elements is remarkable. The bass and drums are separate but equal and the guitar groove is catchy as hell as the sound effects serve to add exclamations of gleeful energy punctuating the musical equilibrium

“Out Orbit” (14:47) the title track is the longest and swallows up half the real estate. Uh oh. Better be good. Starts out with a bluesy semi-distorted guitar and a simple drum beat with bass. A nice processed sound of something accompanies. A funk guitar joins in intermittently as the industrial effects churn on. The echoey space guitars join in with the rest and a party is afoot! Enough. It’s time for a short guitar solo, no wait, how about a weird little teapot ceremony in music, no how about, well lots of things. The track begins to change things up every few measures ranging from funk guitar to strange indescribable combinations of things. While the changes are drastic in many cases, the flow remains with the melody remaining in tact no matter how weird it gets. Even some Renaissance type scales find their way along with funky bass. Despite the melodic continuity, the tempo can speed up or slow down and the percussion tends to lazily follow along never dominating. Amazingly despite the time length, BH manages to add enough spice to the gumbo pot to keep this one strummin’ and hummin’ along in a most pleasantly interesting way. Lots of ideas morph and twist and turn in unexpected directions but the melodically rooted element ties it all together in a way that makes it fun just like a roller coaster ride or in this case a space ship cruise. This is after all quite the space rock experience done like no other

“Assortments (4:30) begins things off with a bluesy guitar riff that reminds me of hard rock bands from the 70s but still very much sounds like BH in the melodic development and little quirks that are instantly recognizable. Of course it doesn’t take long for things to change up as the hard rock becomes more alternative metal in structure and intensity but still retains a bit of that bluesy rock sound even when it’s most at odds.

An excellent PIKE to start off the new year and all tracks except the final one actually kept me quite captivated if not exactly blowing me away. Partially because the ideas are not new but BH has regained some mojo and found a nice way of sprucing them up. The newer production techniques that he’s been implementing have surely helped and it’s now easier to separate different tracks of sound groups than on earlier PIKEs. Hopefully more of these are in the hatchery