BUCKETHEAD — Pike 38 - It Smells Like Frogs (review)

BUCKETHEAD — Pike 38 - It Smells Like Frogs album cover

Album · 2013 · Alternative Metal

3.5/5 · 2016-08-01
siLLy puPPy

PIKE 38 - IT SMELLS LIKE FROGS is the 27th album released by BUCKETHEAD in 2013 and the 67th solo album overall. Perfromed exclusively by the chicken lover and produced by Dan Monti and Albert. This one has SIX tracks titled “Gold Dragon” ranging from “Part 1” to “Part 6” with a final title track. The tracks pretty much run into each other

"Gold Dragon part 1" (3:49) starts out with echoey clean guitars and then turns into a distorted echo guitar freakiness. This one remains alternative grungy metal and utilizes different riffs, breakdowns and has episodes of echoey guitar staccato action. Has some nice extra surprises as well

"Gold Dragon part 2" (3:37) continues the grungy distorted riffage but eventually starts changing thing up faster with tempo changes, guitar solos and echoes all trading off abruptly with the power chords. It reverts back to heavy riffage

"Gold Dragon part 3" (3:27) continues with some dissonant arpeggios and then turns into a more tumultuous riff that sounds unstable. The guitar seem to be building into a frenzy of some sort as they ratchet up the tempo, time sig changes and brief dippings into strange unexpected guitar licks but eventually gets back to the main catchy riff

"Gold Dragon part 4" (4:38) continues with a slower, odd-timed cleaner riff with some distortion. After a while it engages in power chord staccato with echo effects and then back to riffage. It continues by changing up the riffs

"Gold Dragon part 5" (3:42) continues by upping the aggression and chugs out the rhythms and riffs faster but soon starts changing them up by slowing down and adding echoes and then back to normal heavy riffing. Then it has some strange up and down scale action before a solo and then some Mozart-esque classical type neoclassical then some tech thrash then some industrial metal type power riffs then neoclassical solos again. This one is pretty cool

"Gold Dragon part 6" (5:18) takes the baton unnoticeably by reverting back into a heavy normal sounding alt metal riff. Then come the echo chords. Eventually it has a jazzy guitar solo around a funky bass line. Then heavy distorted power chords and back to riffs.This unpredictable track stays in alt metal territory but continues to change up the riffs and tempos almost entering classic 80s metal at time but ultimately ends with a clean guitar outro

"It Smells Like Frogs" (6:37) The only non-Gold Dragon track starts out super grungy and sounds as disconnected from the rest as its name. The guitar sounds tuned lower and the distortion is different as well. The alt metal riffage is still in order and there are guitar licks that trade off with it at times. This one basically continues to change it up by changing riffs and tempos and adding different guitar tones at times but it remains highly distorted all the way through and even has early Sabbath moments

This one is better than the last even though it utilizes the same alt metal riffage and distortion. It has more variety and unexpected twists and turns. More creative juices were flowing on this PIKE