THE WISHING BROOK

PIKE 208 - THE WISHING BROOK is the 107th album released by BUCKETHEAD in 2015. Whew! I made it through 32 Halloween spooky dark ambient and odd world soundtracks and i'm so thankful that it's over. Not that there wasn't some cool stuff but that many albums in a row was about to send me away to the insane asylum. The prank of the previous PIKE being titled "365 Days To Halloween?" and insinuating a new countdown to 365 more of them was about to lose me for sure! But here i am back with another review for yet another BUCKETHEAD album. I think i'm growing feathers and a comb and clawed feet! This one is another all instrumental release exclusively played by BUCKETHEAD and clocks in at 29:49 with three tracks called "Wish."

After all that dark ambient stuff i was hoping for a thrashing metal or something more energetic but this one starts ambient! This is a different kind of ambient though. This actually has a melody and rhythm. It's real music and not just random noises. This starts off with an ambient background and a very slow guitar run and no percussion. It takes its sweet time unfolding as the background glow of the ambience echoes and hits a few select notes.

This is a slow burner. It never turns up the heat beyond sizzle. In fact it doesn't even get to that. This is one loooooong monotonous piece where all the tracks flow together. The ambient bass part fades in and out for the album's run while the guitar just gently plucks away intermittently. This is like the soundtrack for a cloud ride or any fluffy feel-good experiences. New age music that Kitaro would be proud of except one little thing: this one is a tad boring. No developments just a looped new age effect that wouldn't feel out of place as a video game soundtrack. OK for background music but not very interesting otherwise.