PIKE 312 - GARY FUKAMOTO MY CHILDHOOD BEST FRIEND THANKS FOR ALL THE TIMES WE PLAYED TOGETHER

PIKE 312 - Gary Fukamoto My Childhood Best Friend Thanks for All the Times We Played Together 10th installment of 2022 Everything played by BUCKETHEAD Total playing time 27 minutes and 5 seconds All instrumental as always!

Third third of a quick succession of PIKEs to have squeaked out of the egg factory, this one appears to be some sort of tribute to a long lost friend with an extra long title. This PIKE features five tracks and jumps back into the usual alt metal mode after a couple avant-garde monstrosities.

"Giant Robot Ray 1" harkens back to BH's early years when giant robots were en vogue. This is a rather nondescript herky jerky alt metal number with lots of stop / start action and simple riffing methodologies. Kinda reminds me of a Green Day song. Has a pop punk flavor to it. At over 9 minutes long also lengthiest track on the PIKE.

"Go Ranger Ray 2" is less grungy and instead employs a bizarre guitar tone in the beginning that is unlike anything i'ver heard before but the track jumps into a more standard BH PIKE by the numbers style that has been done to death at this point. Nice monster growl effects though :)

"Ultraman Ray 3" takes on a bit of funk as the basis for rocking out. This repetitive rocker struts around like a funky chicken on a disco floor but offers a few moments of nice bass flow and a moment of guitar wizardry. The drums are quite busy and the overall groove is catchy.

"Kamen Rider Ray 4" slows things down after four rowdy rockers. This one begins with slow arpeggiated clean guitars before jumping into power chord stomps. This one utilizes silence as an instrument with moments inserted between guitar chords and riffs.

"Ray 5" is quite different. A series of electronic blips and bloops with a guitar and a bunch of freeform guitar licks. Sounding more like the improvisational wonder of early Henry Cow rather than anything BH dishes out, i have to say that this is a refreshing deviation from the over extended styles of recent memory. This is basically a series of clean guitar improvs with some bizarre time sigs and other experimental touches included.

Overall not a bad PIKE but not one that blows me away either. I commend BH for exploring new avenues at the very least but nothing on this one really feels more than a rough draft either. Guess i'm a harsher grader these days. Not as unhinged as the last two PIKEs but at least not a retreat back into the done to death styles of 2022.