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COLMA

Buckethead

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Buckethead Colma album cover
3.71 | 38 ratings | 4 reviews | 29% 5 stars

Excellent addition to any
rock music collection

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Studio Album, released in 1998

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Whitewash (4:44)
2. For Mom (5:10)
3. Ghost (5:29)
4. Hills of Eternity (5:07)
5. Big Sur Moon (1:13)
6. Machete (6:18)
7. Wishing Well (4:03)
8. Lone Sal Bug (5:32)
9. Sanctum (3:42)
10. Wondering (2:16)
11. Watching the Boats with My Dad (5:07)
12. Ghost, Part 2 (2:31)
13. Colma (3:15)

Total Time 54:27

Line-up / Musicians

- Buckethead / guitars, bass
- Brain / drums & loops
- DJ Disk / scratches (4,6,8)
- Bill Laswell / bass (6)
- Terry Untalan / cello & viola (8,10)

Releases information

CyberOctave

Thanks to Aleandro96 for the addition
and to projeKct for the last updates
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BUCKETHEAD Colma ratings distribution


3.71
(38 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of rock music(29%)
29%
Excellent addition to any rock music collection(47%)
47%
Good, but non-essential (16%)
16%
Collectors/fans only (8%)
8%
Poor. Only for completionists (0%)
0%

BUCKETHEAD Colma reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by siLLy puPPy
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR PSIKE, JRF/Canterbury, P Metal, Eclectic
4 stars Another album (#4), another change in the eclectic world of BUCKETHEAD. As much as he has changed up his sound and genres, he also released his albums on new labels. This one on CyberOctave. While the previous albums saw the chicken lover focusing on his guitar playing skills and guest DJ electronica, COLMA is a totally different beast focusing on his sensual and tender side. This album was recorded solely for his mother who was dying of colon cancer and the purpose of it was to create a beautiful and healing listening experience for her alone. The result is an album that sounds like a different artist altogether. COLMA is all acoustic and totally based on beautiful and melancholic melodies as the basis for the songwriting.

COLMA is the name of a town south of San Francisco where the city moved all the cemeteries to in the early 20th century. The dead outnumber the living by thousands and is also Spanish for 'filled to the brim' or 'overflowing.' This small town is also a shopping mall haven these days but i digress. COLMA, the album, is simply a nice mellow experience that incorporates acoustic guitar with reverb effects and a few tracks that are actually very spacey. It is all instrumental with BUCKETHEAD playing both guitar and bass but it also includes percussion on some tracks, record scratching and cello and viola.

This is an album that i really didn't like that much at first preferring BUCKETHEAD's more energetic albums but i have to admit that this one has grown on me. Every track is clearly from the heart and the story behind it clearly tugs on my heart strings. Not just a sympathy album by any means. This is a beautifully constructed album by a master musician who is capable of the most aggressive sounds when desired and in this case the most tear jerking melodies that a musician could muster up. While all is acoustic there is a major emphasis on echo effects which has since become a staple in BUCKETHEAD's sound. A lighthearted and emotional album COLMA is. There seem to be two camps of BUCKETHEAD lovers. One who loves the avant- garde and one who loves the more accessible. I have come to be in both camps. COLMA is a beautiful creation for lover's of melodic acoustic rock.

Review by admireArt
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars "COLMA", 1998, one of Buckethead's first releases (as far as his PA's discography shows), is focused and dedicated to his convalescent mother. Its musical intentions, although somewhat private, turned out to be quiet appealing and universal.

As I once mentioned about Buckethead, he usually is far more deep, as heartfelt performance-wise, in his slow paced compositions. He just lets his passion be the guiding light and the rest just falls easy.

With the basic (acoustic/electric) guitar , bass and drums structure + the addition of DJ Disk's scratches on some tracks, Terry Untalan's cello and viola on others and (great) Bill Laswell's bass on track 6, the real deal relies on music composition, and from there Buckethead and Co. are quiet amazing performers.

COLMA's, slow-paced and mid-paced (tracks 5, 6 and 9) moods, run along the whole release, yet he is no easy prey for cheesy solutions or to honey fill his ballads. He finds his way to detour from these cliches and finds more daring, creative and unorthodox ways to pull it through. yet never losing sense or sensibility.

The kind of release that will fulfill your ears with delights if you choose its right time to listen to.

So do not wait that long, "Call Ma!"

****4 PA stars.

Review by patrickq
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars Since Buckethead recorded these songs for his mother, who was recovering from colon cancer, I thought the title of this album must be a portmanteau of "colon" and "coma." Turns out Colma is a cemetery city in California. So that makes sense, right?

Colma was my introduction to the artist's music. Prior to that I had known Buckethead as the guy who released an album every week, and I wondered whether this was the same guy who temporarily took Slash's place in Guns & Roses. Turns out it's the same guy. So I kind of expected this album to be shredded cheese, like Yngwie Malmsteen in a serious time crunch.

Well, I was way off. Colma is a new-age album,* and I mean that in the nicest possible way. It's a showcase for pensive, slightly jazzy guitar. For the most part, it's electro-acoustic, with lots of digital delay on the otherwise mostly clean guitar, and mostly programmed or looped drums. There's even scratching on a few tracks, with mixed results. Half of the songs don't include drums; "Big Sur Moon" is just Buckethead and his heavily-delayed guitar, à la the Edge. "Wishing Well" is primarily two guitars, maybe something like Steve Howe. And the final four songs ("Wondering," "Watching the Boats with My Dad," "Ghost (pt. 2)," and "Colma") also eschew percussion.

On the plus side, Colma has nice melodies, is expertly executed, and hangs together as an album. And "Machete" rivals similar efforts by Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson. But as a whole, the album doesn't stand out among the thousands of solo instrumental albums released by guitarists in the 1980s and 1990s.

*Colma is actually much new-agier than Howe's The Grand Scheme of Things, which hit #15 on Billboard's Top New Age Albums chart in 1994.

Latest members reviews

5 stars There's a certain beauty in some music that's relatable; something that's down-to-earth and honest in being. So much so that it draws you in and speaks to you. Not an untouchable, lofty kind of beauty, but one that doesn't need to hide behind a certain gimmick or idea to be great; it's just natu ... (read more)

Report this review (#1554713) | Posted by stainedclass2112 | Friday, April 22, 2016 | Review Permanlink

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