siLLy puPPy Although BUCKETHEAD has slowed down a bit compared to the massive flood of PIKES that poured out in 2015, he still has released more than the average artist per year. Enter PIKE 292 - GALAXIES which is only the 4th installment of 2021 but remember it’s still May and there are still no signs of the missing PIKES 285, 286, 289 and 290 so we’ll just have to see when those postponed eggs will hatch. Perhaps the baby chicks looked at the state of the world and said they’re not ready to come out yet :D

PIKE 292 - GALAXIES is the standard affair with BUCKETHEAD performing all the instruments on a near 30-minute time limit. This one has two tracks with one shorty and one monstrous behemoth that basically takes up the entire album’s run. Like all the PIKES, this one is completely instrumental and explores the same territories already laid out on countless PIKES that have come before. I’m beginning to wonder how long BUCKETHEAD can recycle these same musical motifs? What’s the point? Why is it so hard to reinvent the chicken? Oh well.

“Domain Of The Air” is a tad shy of 5 minutes and features one of those fiery alternative metal tracks. Nice groove, nice beat, nice riffing however sounds like myriad PIKES from the vaults. The newer productions values offer more atmospheric backdrops and the distortion is cool too but nothing new under the sun here.

The 24 minute title track is basically the rest of the album and features the standard fiery alt metal guitar riffs, bass and drums that sputter on and then slow down for a nice little chill session and then fire up the pistons and again. There are a few twists and turns that offer variety but as far as anything new to offer, nope, ain’t here. This has to be some kind of record for most subtle variations on a theme! The only problem is that some of us BH fans aren’t amused any longer!

I guess it should go without a doubt that quantity is very much the goal over quality at this point. Although PIKES have always been hit and miss, the latest batch have hovered somewhere in between awful and magnanimous. All of these are totally listenable and if the goal is to simply create nice background music for computer nerds who aren’t focusing on the music in an active manner, then this is probably a good strategy however if you’re looking for something innovative, this ain’t it! Good and nothing more.