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BUCKETHEAD - PIKE 45 - THE COATS OF CLAUDE

4th album out of 60 in 2014 and 75th overall

All sounds brought to you by Buckethead and all instrumental

This one has 7 tracks that clock in at 29:59

"The Coats of Claude" (13:26) is by far the longest track at nearly half the album’s length and begins with a distorted alternative metal type of guitar sound that is somewhere between mid and fast tempo. It has a recurring melodic chord progression but does change it up a bit by guitar licks, chord phasings and sizzling solos over those very progressions. It is a bit repetitive as it’s only a few chords passing the ball but the icings on the cake are decent and energetic. To be honest i’m totally done with this at 3:26 and it goes on 10 minutes longer. Yawn

"Ghost in the Rocking Chair" (2:59) continues the thrashfest and starts out super heavy and aggressive with some proggy touches and stays that way

"Animatronic Party Goers" (2:31) sounds a lot like the last track. Thrashy and heavy as hell with oddly timed time sigs and guitar riffage at a break neck speed. Sounds too much like the previous track actually.

"Dancing Backwards" (2:25) continues the previous track only faster and more furious. Stays so for the entire run

"Forked Beak" (1:48) continues with hard and heavy thrashy riffing metal madness with off kilter time sigs but is still as relentless

"Dimly Backlit Eyeballs" (2:29) is yet another hard and heavy thrashy metal track that offers strange time sig workouts and energetic outbursts of heavy metal delight but nothing not heard before on this album

"Headless Reflection" (4:21) is finally something slightly different with a weird guitar lick intro and then jumps into the expected thrash metal mode. It’s ok but nothing extremely inventive or exciting

This one is ok but it really is just one track after another that is too similar to get my attention. All of these highly headbangin’ thrashy metal tracks are good on their own but they sound too much alike for the most part with only little snippets standing out. Pretty meh actually

This one is just too samey and uninspired. Lots of furious hardcore thrash metal action but no substance. I really want to like this more but in the end there’s just too little variation and originality to even care when these PIKEs are a dime a dozen