siLLy puPPy
PIKE 160 - LAND OF MINIATURES is the 59th album released by BUCKETHEAD in 2015. Another PIKE, another instrumental all performed by BUCKETHEAD and another near half hour album clocking in at 28:59 and is divided up by four tracks with the title track taking up more than half of the musical real estate.
The gargantuan title track leads things off with a heavy guitar riff and some synthesized sound effects. Some off time sigs already creeping in but only in a subtle way. Pretty straight forward alternative metal riffing. Kinda goes on and alternates with a cleaner echoey guitar riff. One of those where the riff goes on and on and on but finally some electronica action but doesn’t last long and then the riffing starts back up and goes on and on and on. After minutes of this there comes a solo. Not digging this. Not bad per se but a whole lotta mediocrity goin’ on.
Track two “Loathsome Shape” at 3:19 is another alternative metal rocker only this time we get a cheesy drum machine with it! Well, this is boring. Another repetitive throwaway track with some thrash elements but overall nothing but a repetitive riff with cheesy electronic drums.
Track three “Triceratoptron” at 5:18 runs together with track two and abruptly changes into a more thrashy riff that starts and stops. The drums still sound programmed but the style has turned in their favor slightly, however this has no interesting developments. At the end a solo comes in but at this point who cares! The solos are OMG sizzling but the basic song structure is meh.
Track four “Way Back When” at 4:46 and starts off with a soft echoey guitar at a slow tempo unaccompanied and then is joined by some percussion. Oh no! It’s one of those ridiculously slow and sentimental ballads. I’m so sick of these goddamn things. OK. Here comes the Pink Floydian guitar lines to give it more melodic legitimacy. Actually this isn’t horrible as far as these kinds of tracks go but i’m hardly feeling like i just won the lottery and now own the doggie treat factory.
Another boring PIKE. After two great ones i couldn’t possibly hope for a third so didn’t set my expectations too high. It’s almost like BUCKETHEAD created a giant slunk stack out of all these PIKES only for us to go exploring to find the treasures. Not sure if i feel abused or not but this one despite being played well doesn’t beckon a return visit.