siLLy puPPy B U C K E T H E A D PIKE 231 - DRIFT 12th album by BUCKETHEAD in 2016 (released March 15) Clocks in at 27:43 ALL instrumental EVERYTHING performed for you by Buck-buck-buck-buckethead

The second PIKE released on March 15. This one has four tracks with the title track swallowing up almost a third of the near half hour album.

“Fastpass” (7:03) starts out slow and mellow with a synth, a slow guitar and it sounds like it’s gonna be one of those Pink Floyd slow tempo bluesy guitar tracks. Yep. Continues as the same style and doesn’t really go anywhere interesting. Nice tones and does have chord changes but BH has done this much better before. OK but not OMG

“Drift” (9:42) is the longest track and it starts off as one of those alternative rockers with a mid-tempo and a bluesy rock kind of riffage with higher register licks building around them. The bass and drums sound a little generic as do the song developments. Just as i suspected. This goes on and on without anything interesting happening. We’ve heard this all before. Yawn

“Tentacion” (3:24) begins with a highly distorted guitar that resonates creating a blurry muddy sound. A riff begins with some echoey drums and a mid paced marching beat. Nice tones and nice sound. The track is somewhat interesting but doesn’t blow my socks off either

“Streamlet” (7:34) is the most upbeat track breaking into a heavy metal groove with fast riffage, pounding bass and drums. This is the best track on here. It isn’t OMG original but the riffs are crunchy and vicious. The solos are excellent and the track has a major bite to it. In the song writing department it’s a rather average alternative instrumental rocker and there are no surprises but all is well played and the instruments have a nice way of playing in tandem. Very melodic actually once the guitar solos shine through.

I find the first two tracks rather uninspiring but the last two are decent if not OMG original. This is a slightly below average PIKE rendered somewhat unnecessary by the sheer amount of this type of stuff glutting the bloated PIKE world