BUCKETHEAD — Pike 268 - Sonar Rainbow (review)

BUCKETHEAD — Pike 268 - Sonar Rainbow album cover

Album · 2017 · Alternative Metal

3/5 · 2017-07-21
siLLy puPPy

BUCKETHEAD (as Bucketheadland) / Pike 268 - Sonar Rainbow / 25th release of 2017 / All instrumental / Contains 4 tracks / Clocks in at 29minutes 35seconds / everything played by Buck-buck-buckethead.

“Sonar Rainbow” (11:27) the longest track begins with an ambient flow and echoey clean guitar which insinuates a possible non-rock type of album but lo and behold a guitar jumps in and then like lemmings so does the bass and drum section. It continues to jam on building up a melody but slightly before the three minute mark slows down back to the echoey guitar type of intro but only for a while as a guitar solo erupts for a while. As it continues it becomes a repetitive sequence of guitar chords with a bluesy guitar solo around it. The production is pretty cool as the guitar sounds are processed in interesting ways that give a crisp unusual type of distortion to them, however the music is just like a gazillion other PIKEs that have this same jamming around a repetitive chord sequence. Personally i find it a bit boring

“The Maddening Of Mercury” (6:56) begins with a heavily distorted guitar riff that is downtrend and sounds rather monstrous with a few little squeals stuck in and then a guitar solo sputters all around it. The riff becomes a bit more chaotic. This one has a really cool hellish sound as it’s all murky and highly cacophonous. When a guitar solo erupts again the riffs take a break but they come back soon enough. I like this one a lot. It has a rather loose compositional style with all kinds of different counterpoints that aren’t predictable unlike the previous track. The bouncy distorted riffs have some jittery time signatures that seem a bit erratic as well. Half way through it changes it up and creates a more frenetic riff meets solo sequence. Lots of changes and dipping into strange surreal segments. Nice.

“Debris” (2:37) is a jittery little number that hops, skips and jumps around like a decapitated chicken but then settles into a steady beat and rhythm with crunchy guitars but also deviates into little dissonant segments that last a while before moving on. There is a dissonant relationship between the riffs and the lead guitar. Also very progressive in its time signature run. Another cool track.

“Venomous Fog” (8:35) starts out ambient like the first track but then jumps into a heavy guitar riff. After it properly introduces itself it quiets down for a few seconds. This one sounds much like the beginning track with a repetitive sequence of chords that allow the lead guitar to wank over although they appear less often at first and let the riffs simply do their rhythmic thang. It basically alternates between the heavier passages and then quiets things down for a while. The melodic development remains constant for the entire track. Another been there, done that a million times before type track. Not bad but fairly meh.

The first and last tracks are meh but i love the second two enough to give this three stars.