PIKE 246 - NETTLE

"Nettle" (2:54) has a fast tempo and is quite feisty metal with crunchy distorted riffs, pummeling bass and drums with occasional slower breaks of distorted arpeggios but for the most part this is one short but energetic metallic gallop through alternative metal pastures

"Praying" (2:46) starts out contrastingly with slower cleaner echoey guitars that reverberate to infinity with a lazy bass and drum accompaniment. The tempo picks up slightly and becomes more rockin' but remains melancholic and subdued. A higher register guitar lick provides a melodic development

"Storms" (2:37) is much like track one. It is a feisty distorted metal eruption of alternative energy just chomping at the bit to race into the fiery racetracks of hell leaving everything ablaze in its wake. The track however is a little too similar and the only difference is a slightly different riffing sequence otherwise the tones, timbres, tempo and overall feel are identical

"Barren part 1" (4:56) contrasts once again with cleaner guitars at first with a folk melody that alternates with metal guitars before erupting into a full-fledged alt metal sound. While not as feisty and fiery as tracks one and three, it still has a quickened tempo that delivers a few different riffs that alternate with the folky melody in the slower cleaner parts that jump from time to time

"Barren part 2" (9:29) is the lengthy part of the album that swallows a third of it and basically is an imperceivable continuation of "Part 1." It is one of those tracks with repetitive chord structures that repeat to infinity with a lead bluesy guitar noodling around. While i love virtuosity in music, i just find these repetitive types of tracks that BH has done countless times at this point, well boring. Song structure means everything and virtuosity should only serve a greater purpose. This jam session approach was cool the first umpteen times but after hundreds of Pikes with many containing this exact same type of track?..yawn

"Open Ancient" (2:50) is another feisty metal march into the speed gates of hell. Fast, furious guitar riffs usher bombastic bass lines and dramatic drum rolls at the speed of light. This one is actually a bit more interesting than the others for no particular reason. All the elements are the same, it's just that it's a bit feistier and has bit more metal attitude i guess. Some of the riffs are more galloping and probably my fave on the PIKE

"Leaving Shells" (2:49) is slightly less frenetic with more time signature changes. The drum remains constant while the distorted guitar dances around it for the most part. This one is nicely done as well as it doesn't sound like it's been done gazillion times before. Still though it's nothing that makes me go OMG!

This is a well played but uninspiring PIKE if you've heard the entire run of the PIKE series. Like many of these, if this is the first thing you've heard from BH, you'll be blown away but if you've heard all his PIKEs like i have then this is fairly run of the mill in the composition department

2.5 rounded down

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