siLLy puPPy PIKE 186 - 21 DAYS TO HALLOWEEN: CEMENT DECAY is the 85th album released by BUCKETHEAD in 2015 and the 11th installment in the countdown to HALLOWEEN. You guessed it! This is another freakathon dark ambient soundtrack for the insane. All sounds brought to you exclusively by BUCKETHEAD and this one clocks in a whole 11 seconds over the half hour mark. There are 8 tracks all titled “Cement Decay.”

“Cement Decay Part 1” starts out with a repetitive string note that varies in volume. Sounds like an exotic far Eastern instrument of some sort. There are ambient noises in the background that jump at you from the dark. This one has a slight orchestrated sound at times and this one does bring Karlheinz Stockhausen and other pointillistic pioneers to mind however i have no idea if this seemingly random parade of sound is obscuring something more structured or not. Like the other PIKES with same named tracks, these all run together seamlessly but it does change a bit when it starts a new one. In this case it doesn’t change too much once we hit “Part 2” as it continues the same note but there is some new jittery strings accompanying it with a more frantic background like a gong being rubbed with a mallet or something.

As this goes on unfortunately it doesn’t change things up too much. I’m finding this a little too samey. The same bawng bawng of the string keeps repeating, the jittery twitchy higher strings come and go and some other chirpy noises flutter in and out now and again but this never really develops into anything more. Of course this would be a great dungeon soundtrack for the passive listener but as an active one this one isn’t quite as interesting as the others. In fact it’s one of the lesser ones so far.