siLLy puPPy PIKE 103 - SQUID INK LODGE is the 2nd album released by BUCKETHEAD in 2015. This is another three track album clocking in at 30:12.

“Old Lunch Pale” is a 9:07 blues track that shows some serious note bends, guitar slides and repetitive bass. Fairly standard. Nothing special.

“Squid Ink Lodge” at 15:45 is more than half the album and the most experimental, progressive and funky. Lots of guitar tricks, riffs and sounds visiting from the past including guitar freak outs, electronic freak outs and some other weirdness i can’t put into words. The general song structure is fairly standard funky rock and metal. The riff is straight forward with some occasional progressive time signature changes. This track has a few good moments but doesn’t really put a lot of the elements together in an interesting way for me. Lots of soloing at the end but nothing really out of the ordinary. Nothing as virtuosic as on earlier albums, just a bluesy hard rock kind of soloing centered around funk meets metal riffage.

“Drawing In The Dirt” at 5:20 is the shortest track. This is another Hendrix inspired bluesy hard rocker pretty much like the same type of tracks on “Sideway Streets.” Nothing special, nothing exciting, just decent but unmemorable Hendrix worship. Another meh release.