BUCKETHEAD — Pike 74 - Infinity Hill (review)

BUCKETHEAD — Pike 74 - Infinity Hill album cover

Album · 2014 · Hard Rock

4/5 · 2016-11-02
siLLy puPPy

BUCKETHEAD - PIKE 74 - INFINITY HILL 33rd album out of 60 in 2014 and 103rd overall All sounds brought to you by Buckethead and all instrumental This one has 8 tracks that clock in at 29:21

“Under Earth” (4:13) is much more rockin’ than the last two duds. This bursts out of the gates with a heavy staccato metal chord progression with heavy bass and drums to match. It then slows down to a Pink Floydian space rock tone where echoey dreamy guitars conjure up visions of lysergic rainbows fornicating with lusty clouds but then it bursts into heavy metal again so screw that. The main melodic development is rather of bluesy rock but it changes it up from super heavy metal to merely hard rock and then back to space rock. This one is pretty cool actually. The bass has a rather progressive rock rhythmic approach and the guitar is up to the task of counterpointing in a slightly off manner as to make it more interesting. This is the BUCKETHEAD i know and love, not that crap that dribbles between these types of interesting PIKEs.

“Dark Moon” (6:24) continues the overall sound established. There is a combo effect of echoey clean guitars, heavier guitars and a slightly funky bass and nice spiced up drum roll. There is also a progressive rock type of jam session going on with slight offnesses and interesting build ups. The solos have a slight Hendrix flair but the instruments weave in and out of each other’s timings quite effectively. This is brilliant progressive rock not quite building up enough steam to actually be called metal but WOW! Nice bluesy hard progressive rock with a jazz fusion feel. Oh yeah!

“Ray Cast” (1:09) is a short but sweet grungy but slow little ditty that mildly picks up some bluesy gusto before it just abruptly ends

“The Land Bleeds” (3:55) starts out totally funkified with a hyperactive bass struttin’ its sheet like a cocky rooster in a henhouse but then the whole thing breaks down into avant-garde weirdness and then it picks up again with a more rockin’ bass line with a call and effect guitar response. It then again changes and then changes again. The general gist is a nice hook and then some messy unhinged transitional weirdness. Pretty cool actually because it’s all proportionally pleasing

“The Mist” (1:26) another short track that has a nice little heavy bass line, staccato guitar accompaniment that also turns into a weird distorted frenzy. Drums nice

“Forest Guardian” (4:13) is different with heavily distorted and echoey guitars accompanied by a nice beefy bass line. It soon changes becoming somewhat funkified with the drums joining in and the guitars providing a constant rotisserie of changing effects. I love the break downs that just let the freak flag fly into pure chaos. Coool

“Watchershand” (3:14) is another slightly funky bass led track with a nice catchy melody with an alternative rock guitar helping out. This is so catchy it could almost be the background music for a jangle pop outfit like REM but has a little too much progressive unpredictabilities that pop up from time to time to actually fit that bill

“Infinity Hill” (4:47) is another interesting take on funk and progressive rock. Nice beefy baseline with lots of cymbal and drum action. It slows down and becomes darker and more ominous but slowly ratchets back up to speed. The melody is nice and bass driven. In fact this one has no guitar whatsoever. It is only bass and drums but sounds original and refreshing