siLLy puPPy BUCKETHEAD (as Bucketheadland) / Pike 251 - Waterfall Cove / 8th release of 2017 / All instrumental / Contains 4 tracks / Clocks in at 28minutes 50seconds / everything played by Buck-buck-buckethead

“Waterfall Cove” (7:41) begins soft and dreamy. Clean guitar, slow and sensual bass. Cymbal action. Then it picks up with heavier drums but still slow and serene like a summer breeze in the Bahamas. It slowly and steadily picks up steam and somewhere over the TWO minute mark adds some more energetic passages as it quickly goes back to soft and serene and then finds enough confidence to pick up the steam a bit. While these sorts of BH tracks are very hit and miss, this one has a decent ambience and overall mood setting to it. Not his peak but still quite pleasant. The guitar has a particularly pleasant tone to its twanging about

“Whispers Way” (11:22) begins slow and easy with breezy ambience and clean guitars and light drumming action. It continues the basic melody with a slow and steady delivery and has tinny guitar solos, bass and drums follow a predictable path down the mellow zone. Yeah, this is similar to countless PIKES before but there’s something about the newer technology of production, the slightly tweaked ways of playing (yeah, i’m paying attention) and the attention to percussion not being a lazy follow that works for me. While this doesn’t blow me away, it doesn’t blow me off either however it does drag on for too long and hasn’t enough ideas for totally excitement. It does pick up a bit towards the end with lead guitar albeit in bluesy mode but pleasant enough to prevent suicides

“The Barren Plains” (2:47) starts out with extra echoey clean guitars and creates a guitar melody in clean mode and adds bass and drums. Nice ambience. BH has gotten the overall effect thing down for sure but compositionwise this is pretty standard stuff at this point. If you can’t get enough of this, you’ll love it but for me. Yawn

“9001” (7:00) seems to take off where the last track left off. It is a clean guitar with bass and light drums but then suddenly after a but totally metamorphoses into a grungy heavily distorted guitar sound that makes me wanna jump in the mosh pit but then just as i’ve acclimated gets cold feet and becomes clean and echoey again in the most mellow of ways. Oh wait! More moshing to be done! Just as i’ve acclimated to clean, it rocks again but then simmers down to semi-rock and then grungy rock with a cool sustain on the grunge and then back to clean. Not a bad track actually

This one is somewhat derivative of many of the PIKES of the past but somehow stands out a wee bit more. Yeah a WEEEEE bit more. It’s not gonna exactly usurp any of my favorite PIKES for sure but at least has a nice delivery system of previously presented ideas which makes it OK but not outstanding. So a good album it is without being OMG great