PIKE 100 - THE MIGHTY MICROSCOPE

BUCKETHEAD - PIKE 100 - The Mighty Microscope 59th album out of 60 in 2014 and 129th overall All sounds brought to you by Buckethead and all instrumental This one clocks in at 29:59 and has three tracks

"The Mighty Microscope" (13:57) begins a quick paced tempo with a funky guitar that sounds like something out of the 70s with a subordinate bass and drums. Guitar has a wah-wah effect and creates a fairly simple danceable melody which repeats frequently but around the two minute mark we finally get a little break and something new begins to emerge as it changes and then the guitar gets a little looser and free flowing with more licks and solos spewing out of the jive turkey guitar tones. The guitar solos become more bluesy and remind me a bit of 80s Guns N Roses types that Slash used to churn out. They don't last long enough and back 2 da funk rock! Yeah just hard rock. Not heavy enough to qualify as metal. As the track goes on it basically keeps the same beat, same rhythm and same overall melody while the guitar offers slight variations of the overall theme. It's all nice and listenable although i think a near 14 minute is a little excessive for what's offered here. We'll played and all is OK but not OMG

"Phase Yellow" (5:21) begins more subdued with a slow down-tuned bluesy type of sound with a bass lick followed by a Hendrix like type of squealing guitar line. It's a cool cat type of sound that makes me think of a blues based speakeasy in Chicago in 1969 or something. While the bass line stays silky smooth and chilled out, the guitar gets all freaky and spastic and delivers some rip roaring sizzling bluesy solos. The drum is chillin' with the bass so it's two on codeine while the other is on caffeine. The solos offer some interesting uniquenesses but overall pretty standard blues stuff. Still i find this one really cool and a fun listen

"Inner Space" (10:41) begins even slower and mellower with clean guitar, bass and snail-paced lazy drumbeat. This immediately starts sounding like a million other slow sappy ballads in the BH canon. Nice echoey guitar effect and melody not bad but like other similar PIKE tracks doesn't evolve past the recurring chord sequences and despite ratcheting up the tempo and dynamics to make it more rockin' it's still one of those deja-vous tracks that sounds all too familiar because it's been done to death and this one adds no new spins to the recurring theme whatsoever. Meh

First track is decent, second track is actually pretty cool. Third track makes me wanna lose my lunch so unfortunately not my favorite PIKE of the lot

2.5 rounded down