UNDERGROUND CHAMBER

Alright, so this is Underground Chamber. This is an example of pushing things way too far. To sum this Pike up in one sentence, this album consists of a single 30 minute song that just aimlessly makes strange noises and awkward sound effects with occasional horrible guitar solos. This is atrocious. This is at rock bottom when it comes to the Pike series, and this is only number 4! This album literally flies in the face of what music is, completely bludgeoning any remains of harmony and melody. The best moments of the album are very few and far between, making this a rather annoying listening experience.

Most of Buckethead's experimental Pikes are actually a blast to listen to, but this is largely a musical failure. Buckethead takes his position as the only member of his outfit and abuses it until the listener seriously questions the point of the recording. In my experience with listening to Buckethead, this is actually one of the few Pikes I never got around to listening to, and I'd consider myself lucky, because darn. Occasionally, you'll hear a demented, effect-choked riff that actually manages to catch your attention, but most of this sounds like it was actually played by someone with a serious case of insanity. Almost every single one of the odd or unorthodox ideas that Buckethead uses on this recording are swiftly undermined by the severe lack of direction and creativity. This not only makes the album sound like a loose and directionless noodle session, but it makes it quite the boring and sometimes even annoying listen.

To try to describe this to someone who has never heard it would be difficult, but this can basically be summed up as music in the vein of extremely loose and unrestrained avant-garde with tons of experimental influence. Gone are all of the neat licks, the skilled solos, and even the funky bass playing. All we are given here is a massive noodle session that is frighteningly... well, frightening! There is only one section of this that is pulled off in an effective manner, and it is toward the end of the song. Everything calms down to allow some very cool funky jamming with a subtle wah effect. This is quickly extinguished by more what-the-hellery. This one section of decent jamming is arguably the strongest on the album, and the only part that could redeem this. This is quickly killed off, however, and that decent moment is thrown away. Any novelty that this has is quickly and efficiently extinguished by the massive run time of the single track of this Pike. I seriously respect the Buckethead fans who love this one, and that number is rather minute.

The album has a very thick and strange atmosphere that is delivered by odd background noises that frequent the music. There will be weird bouncing sounds, echoes, and odd feedback that continually pops its ugly head to make the music all the more hellish. I can handle the out of place background noises, but there is this specific popping/fuzz noise that seriously hurts my ears. Why the hell this is included along with the music is beyond me, but seriously. You know the static that your television makes when you lose the signal? Well, take that and put a heavy compression on it, then commence to throw it into the music. Sometimes the usage of wacky or unusual sound effects can be the musical explorer's greatest weapon, but when it is abused in an attempt to attain a demented atmosphere, it quickly becomes annoying.

In the long run, this is a Pike that is to be avoided by fans and non-fans alike. It takes a battle-hardened Bucketbot to brave the Underground Chamber. I would like to consider myself among those ranks, but this is still something that fails to be an engaging or even enjoyable listen. I would recommend that everybody stay away from this one. If you are hugely into avant-garde/experimental things, like the Residents and whatnot, you might enjoy this. Overall, this is one of the absolute worst Pikes. The funny thing is that Buckethead would release Look Up There right after this one. Look Up There is considered by a huge crowd of Buckethead's fans to be the best Pike. Go figure.

Originally written for The Metal Archives

PIKE 4 - UNDERGROUND CHAMBER shows BUCKETHEAD going craaaazy and exercising his freaky side. The album contains 10 tracks all titled UNDERGROUND CHAMBER (parts 1-10) and they basically flow together creating one long freaky musical listening experience. Well, musical is a subjective term. This is highly experimental music. It is very avant-garde and free-flowing mixing not only hard rock and metal elements but dark ambient, funk and rather psychedelic tidbits as well. Most of all the album just goes left- field whenever it wants without any need for adhering to rules or regulations or attention spans. The album clocks in around the half hour mark at 30:43 and BUCKETHEAD performs all sounds on board.

This is one that most will hate. There are hooks but they disappear and are replaced by non-related hooks or no hooks at all. It's almost like a sound collage of BUCKETHEADLAND really. I hear different riffs from previous albums and many more that would be recycled on future albums. There is no rhyme or reason as to where metal begins or ends, where electronica is inserted, how tempos flow, really how anything flows. This is true musical liberation. It's almost like a musical equivalent of what would happen if suddenly all the laws of physics were repealed and gravity no longer functioned. Electrical currents no longer flowed or turned into cucumbers. If cats became llamas and beanstalks started sprouting out of your nostrils. Yeah, it's that weird. It's highly surreal but what is magical about this one is how for fleeting moments there are familiar hooks that can catch you but then distorted to extreme weirdness. In fact at times it's like two TV channels competing for screen time with one winning for a while with a smidge of the other trying to burst through but then in the long run both succumb to a new force that bulldozes over them and then that one too is usurped by something new.

This is only for the most adventurous musical souls out there. I cannot think of many albums that even comes close to this in terms of freedom. It is utterly wild and untamed like a free flowing electron relentlessly bombarding molecules of matter and ricocheting violently off in random directions only to hit another particle which changes its musical frequency. While meandering music is more common in ambient and electronic music, BUCKETHEAD keeps the energy level pretty high on this one. This is mostly high energy and chaotic with guitar solos whizzing about like a possessed saw blade flying through a salad bar or a lemur suddenly breakdancing with Cher. The music on here can be funky, it can be head-banging, it can be placid but the only constant is inconsistency. The solos can sizzle accompanied by electronica and then suddenly become funky and then turn into dissonance.

This is definitely up there in terms of weirdness. Only the early Boredoms albums can compete. The emphasis is on keeping things as unpredictable as possible and in that department is totally successful. This is for sure not the most essential BUCKETHEAD album but i actually like this kind of stuff. It is bold, it is brazen. It is just plain nuts. But that is what i like about it. While some albums reek of predictable and checking off the boxes on a certain list, UNDERGROUND CHAMBER excels in being the anti-check-the-box album. It's like laying on the ground and watching clouds roll by. Sometimes they form something familiar and cute and friendly but often are muddled and jumbled gibberish. So too is UNDERGROUND CHAMBER. An album so out there and unique that it deserves a special place just for that achievement. Can't say this is essential but can say it's really good at achieving chaos. For those who love early Boredoms and bands like Psyopus or Behold?. The Arctopus, check this out. Everyone else, run to the hills.