PIKE 293 - OVEN MITTS

Needless to say, the phenomenon known as BUCKETHEAD continues to sally forth into the future as if the bucket on his head has given him some mysterious powers of longevity although at times when ideas are recycled ad nauseam one begins to wonder if the batteries need changing.

I think i get the strategy now and that is crank out a plethora of mediocre but ok albums in the PIKE series and then throw a curveball in from time to time and at long last we have received a hatched egg that has down just that.

PIKE 293 - OVEN MITTS has arrived in the month of July 2021 and is a first in the world of PIKEs, that being that it is a LIVE album! Yep, no recycled ideas of past PIKEs that seem to have run out of steam but rather a collection of live performances which haven't yet been disclosed as to the location of recording.

Live recordings can be a curse and a blessing but in this case it's the latter. As someone who has sat through and reviewed EVERY single BUCKETHEAD album i have to say that it requires the utmost patience to get through some of the dry spells of creativity even though nothing is inherently bad or anything of the sort. It's just that i have an insatiable appetite for music and mediocre retreads just don't cut it in my world.

Despite BH's over 340 studio albums, he's actually released almost no live performances officially at least. Live In Buckethead land merged in 2019 but that's been about it. If you want to hear the chicken lover live then you gotta go see him. I have and honestly was quite disappointed but everyone has a bad night so i suspended my disdain.

PIKE 293 - OVEN MITTS is actually a nice mix of old and new. The tracks range from some of the earliest tracks such as "Welcome To Bucketheadland" from the early 90s along with "Soothsayer" also from the same decade to "Siege Engine" from "Albino Slug" of 2008. The only PIKE track is "Ghosts of Broken Eggs" from "Pike 101 - In The Hollow Hills." "Toystore Live" comes from 2019's live album and the only new track is the title track.

Basically this live album of old material only cements the fact that BH's most recent PIKEs have grown fairly stale as the material here still has some life in it but it's not surprising that when quantity rules over quality that this should be the case. Unfortunately even the chicken lover was not hatched at the same caliber as Amadeus Mozart or Johann Sebastian Bach who could crank out magnificence like a production line. Nice return to form. Hoping new material will follow suit.

3.5 rounded down