siLLy puPPy BUCKETHEAD - PIKE 65 - HOLD ME FOREVER (IN MEMORY OF MY MOM NANCY YORK CARROLL) 24th album out of 60 in 2014 and 95th overall All sounds brought to you by Buckethead and all instrumental This one has 6 tracks that clock in at 28:37 This is obvious by title that it’s a tribute to BUCKETHEAD’s mom, Nancy Carroll and while i was expecting a tear jerking parade of instrumental covers of Celine Dion songs, i’m surprised that this is more energetic and upbeat

“N” (3:48) starts out with a sort of chicken clucking rhythm guitar riff with an accompanying bass and drums. This is basically one of those alternative metal type tracks that would be recycled to death on future PIKEs

“Y” (2:36) simply picks up the melody line from “N” and changes things up a bit but adding a stronger drum beat and more mellow break downs. It creates more harmonic counterparts to the melody as well but the basic clucking rhythmic guitar riff is the same

“C” (1:42) is the same track essentially only the tempo is sped up and the guitar begins to shred not only the rhythm part but with a melodic solo as well

“4” (4:49) sorta keeps the same melody going only morphs it a bit. They tempo remains fast but slows down a bit from “C.” There is a lot more crunchy thrashy guitar riffage here but still not quite thrash metal. It builds up to a sizzling solo and then backs off into metal riffage with a treble lick enshrouding it. The way things trade off is quite nice

“ev” (2:02) still continues the basic melody and simply changes things up a bit. None of the elements are really that different. Simply slight nuances in timings, rhythmic strutting and dynamics

“er” (13:38) continues the theme and melody with more emphasis on the sizzling virtuosic soloing around the crunchy rhythmic crunchy guitar riffage. The solos get more bluesy and frenetic. This one is also a preview of the many PIKEs that follow as it basically creates an infinity of soloing around a very basic looped melodic process and way before the halfway mark, things get very dull. I think this album is where BUCKETHEAD realized there is a market in music that can be totally cool for background music. Because this is totally cool music if you are focusing on something else. If one listens actively it gets fairly monotonous despite the virtuosic one-dimensional acrobatics at play. If one hears this secondarily it’s quite nice. Well, i don’t rate music according to if it is a secondary attention factor so i’m quite bored with this one.

Overall not a bad album but the last track which is half the album wears out its welcome pretty fast. I was actually expecting something more dynamic and unique for a tribute to his mother and all. So this was a bit of a surprise that this was sort of a run-of-the-mill type of BH affair. It was pretty cool up until after the first five minutes of the last track though.