BUCKETHEAD — Pike 55 - The Miskatonic Scale (review)

BUCKETHEAD — Pike 55 - The Miskatonic Scale album cover

Album · 2014 · Progressive Metal

4.5/5 · 2016-09-08
siLLy puPPy

BUCKETHEAD - PIKE 55 - THE MISKATONIC SCALE

14th album out of 60 in 2014 and 85th overall

All sounds brought to you by Buckethead and all instrumental

This one has 8 tracks that clock in at 29:34

Each track is one letter long and spell out “MISKATON”

MISKATONIC comes from the fictional river mentioned in H.P. Lovecraft's horrific novels

Yes, that’s H.P. Lovecraft himself on the album cover watching BUCKETHEAD play guitar!

“M” (3:58) begins things hard and heavy with a ripping metal guitar solo and lightning fast riffs, heavy bass and brutal drums. This one is fairly progressive as the time sigs jump all over the place but there are plenty of just straight forward guitar riffs. There are lots of wild and uninhibited guitar solos that zig and zag all over the place. This is some wild stuff

“I” (6:05) is another heavy metal rocker. This one is more groovy at first and then becomes thrashy. Another progressive time sig jumper where one style plays a while and then trades off with echoey arpeggiated segments inserted here and there. This one is really all over the place timewise as well as stylewise. The groove and thrash riffs vie for domination while the solos and slower parts jump in while they’re fighting it out. Another cool experimental progressive metal track which is the longest track and really takes you on a roller coaster ride that really lets loose towards the end. My fingers are sore just listening!

“S” (0:53) a short jittery little guitar part starts and then industrial metal type riffing that gets faster and then slows down into strange jittery guitar again

“K” (5:42) starts out with heavy jangly metal riffage and then breaks into power chords. It then becomes a jarring oft-kiltered progressive metal feast with all kinds of time sig jumps and instruments dancing around each other. The guitar solos are off the hook intense. This is some of BUCKETHEAD’s most serious chops going on. Speed and technique forced to fornicate together in a cesspool of adrenaline. Despite it all there’s still a catchy hook on most parts

“A” (1:22) is another short but sour little noisefest, where jarring guitar licks, crushing power chords and proggy time sigs join the bass and drums for brief moments of harmony before flapping around each other like decapitated chickens

“T” (2:50) is another crushing metal riff track with odd time sigs that punctuate a steady thrashy flow of distortion. This one also has brief pauses between freak-outs and of course untamed solos

“O” (4:35) begins with a very strange jittery guitar lick and then breaks into a strange guitar riff. More time sigs gone wild with stop and go procedures punctuated by speed finger runs on guitar. This one has the absolute oddest feel to it. Almost feels like alien music of some sort. Dissonance and adrenaline fuel the madness and then it slows down and bizarre use of dynamics comes into play

“N” (4:09) begins with bizarre effects. Sounds totally electronic. There is a rhythmic pattern but it sounds more like a Throbbing Gristle or Coil track than BUCKETHEAD. Well, it could fit in on one of the Halloween Countdown PIKEs or one of the other avant-garde electronica releases. This is just plain weird! Bloops, blips and percussion that sounds like a horse galloping on a drum sets with ear plugs in. The electronic dynamics really freak out from time to time making it all sound distant and then close

When all is said and done i think the reference to Lovecraft and the MISKATONIC SCALE means the alien sounding frenetics on board with this one are supposed to be BH’s newly invented musical SCALE of some sort. Not sure if that’s what was intended or insinuated but this is one of the more bizarre and uncompromising PIKEs that gets my freak flag flying full staff. Not quite as enjoyable as “Factory” but pretty damned close. It certainly is as freaky as a Lovecraft novel