BUCKETHEAD — Pike 75 - Twilight Constrictor (review)

BUCKETHEAD — Pike 75 - Twilight Constrictor album cover

Album · 2014 · Metal Related

5/5 · 2016-11-04
siLLy puPPy

BUCKETHEAD - PIKE 75 - TWILIGHT CONSTRICTOR 34th album out of 60 in 2014 and 104th overall All sounds brought to you by Buckethead and all instrumental This one has 4 tracks that clock in at 30:15

“For Your Safety” (4:08) begins with a rather sinister sounding reverb drenched staccato guitar riff and then a super killa sustain action before drifting into Sabbath inspired doom chords but never mind, it’s time ta break out da funk! But then again maybe some freaky danceable grunge with occasional chimes! Not good enough. Let’s get even weirder! No, let’s funk wit everybody. OK, let’s let the metal monster in to play. Oops. Almost made it through the cat door but not quite. Yeah, you got it. This is one of those change it up and change it often type of tracks. Yay! I love these! Unpredictable and wild yet still keeps a common thread to the whole thing. In this case it’s somewhat of a rhythm that does occasionally burst into avant-garde weirdness

“All Limbs” (4:58) is slower at first with detached guitar sounds but then breaks into funk guitar on steroids with a weird percussive beat and then metal and then a drum roll only and then some weird electronica freak out to the max. Basically this one spastically flaps its musical genre flag around like a freshly decapitated chicken running around the yard squirting blood everywhere! There are also tiny snippets of just plain originality in the guitar department

“Inside” (3:34) jumps into highly grungy material and then becomes a drumbeat and electronic freaky jittery thing and then a heavy drum circle type of thing and then a metal riff and then a hyperactive guitar riff and then, well you get the drift. It changes every few measures and often. The thread that kept the beginning part of this PIKE together is disintegrating and the rhythm is as sporadic and spastic as is the tempo, the timbres, the instrumentation, well, the everything!

“Twilight Constrictor” (17:35) and the title track is the long track that consumes a majority of the album and guess what! It basically simply continues imperceptibly what the last track ended on which happens to be echoey guitars in a distant echo chamber room type of setting. The album turns out to be one long surreal ride through sounds. Since this one has more time under its track it does allow things to breath a little more with melodic development before moving on to something new. We’re no longer pumping genres out at breakneck speed. We can have a zen moment and simply experience the moment. Om shanti om. In fact this mellow alternative dimension type of vibe goes on for quite a while. This is unlike anything i’ve ever heard from BH. It’s so meditative and contemplative. It feels like i’ve discovered a new vibrational force in the atoms in my body and all i can do is sit back and become one with the entire nature of the universe. I’m seeing the point in this exercise. The beginning part of the album demonstrates how busy the modern world is and how we try to cram too many disparate minutia into every single moment. This final track is somewhat of a Krautrock type of extended jam that offers a tonic to the toxins of being in depeche mode (no not the band!) for a long period of time. This track actually reminds me of some of the early 70s German psychedelic experiences. Pretty freekin’ cool actually

GREAT PIKE! I like this one a lot. I interpreted it in a way that may or may not have been intended but i also found it to be a perfect composition of the frenetic and the chilled. This one definitely makes me HAPPY!

more than 2 years ago
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siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Yeah, this is definately one of my favorite Pikes. Just after i heard one of the most boring. What a roller coaster ride BH is!

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Great review, love this album. Meditative is a perfect word to describe that title track, and it's such a perfect contrast with the avant-metal of the rest of the album.