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Buckethead - It's Alive CD (album) cover

IT'S ALIVE

Buckethead

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siLLy puPPy
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
PSIKE, JRF/Canterbury, P Metal, Eclectic
4 stars B U C K E T H E A D

Pike 1 - It's Alive

First album of 2011 as BUCKETHEADLAND

All instrumental

Once upon a time there was a dude called BUCKETHEAD and he released albums ever now and again but something strange happened one day and no one is quite sure what it was for all of a sudden he got a wild hair up his ass and decided that releasing an album or two a year just wasn't sufficient. Granted he had always been prolific but beginning on the innocent little date of May 15, 2011, Buck-Buck-Buck-BUCKETHEAD launched the very first of his PIKE series. PIKE 1 - IT'S ALIVE is the beginning of the seemingly endless releases of this series. The title says it all. IT IS ALIVE and it is growing exponentially every passing year. PIKE 1 is not only the first issue in the series but it is also his first album of 2011 when he released a mere five albums. At this point BUCKETHEAD wasn't doing the one man show yet. He had Dan Monti on board as bassist and producer.

"Lebrontron" (6:24) begins like many of the following PIKES. It has a nice echoey guitar intro and then breaks into distorted hard rock. The track alternates between faster more rocking parts and slower riffs that incorporate solos. Nice and melodic and at this stage there is a bit more spunk in the delivery. The riffs are memorable and it changes things up often enough that it doesn't get boring. Nice thrashy guitar march outro. Cool track.

"Tonka" (3:18) starts out with a totally tripped out electronic noise going up and down the scale with accompanying rock guitar. As it drops out the guitar charges into full fledged metal mode with classic 80s Randy Rhoads type riffing and more remnant of BUCKETHEAD's earliest metal oriented releases. After the metal assault it trades off with slower passages that bring back the electronic effects. Another cool track.

"Peeling Out" (:15) is a short but sweet virtuosic guitar solo that rips at a million miles an hour.

"Barnyard Banties" (2:29) basically bleeds into the solo and starts with an unaccompanied funky bass line and then trades off with a hard drivin' metal guitar riff. These two styles dance with other taking turns and then other guitar weirdness occurs as the funky melody stays the same while the riffs change it up on guitars but the two styles still trade off. Pretty cool as well.

"Crack The Sky" (5:08) starts out with arpeggiated grungy guitar but quickly turns into a galloping metal rocker. After it jumps around like a chicken with its head cut-off it turns into an clean guitar flow for a while before jumping into the metal cauldron again. It continues to alternate the two and then adds solos.

"The Hatch" (4:01) begins with a strange guitar effect and a monotonous marching rhythm with strange electronic embellishments and then all drops out except a funky bass line. It all starts trading off with each other delivering quirky time signatures and brief appearances of metal guitar. It then sounds like a battle between Squarepusher IDM and Van Halen inspired metal riffage. Weird indeed.

"Brooding Peeps" (4:54) starts out with a brooding backing ambient effect with staccato guitar chords that have long pauses in between. It eventually becomes a guitar riff with steady drum and bass. This one displays some fine neoclassical guitar shredding and a bountiful style of changing things up but themes recur only with variations. Another cool track.

"Picking The Feathers" (4:40) is very strange. It starts out with a downtempo type electronic drum and then has intermittent power chords and then little tinklings on the higher register of the guitar. The time sigs and tempo changes are all over the map making it impossible to follow but soon it gets joined in by a steady metal guitar / bass / drumbeat for a while before it reverts back to the avant-garde scene. These two styles trade off with variations each time.

This first PIKE is pretty damn good and shows BUCKETHEAD in a mode where he was clearly passionate about the material. The melodies are strong, the delivery even stronger and the album is varied and nicely produced. This is clearly before he was pumping these out on automatic pilot. IT'S ALIVE is mostly rooted in 80s classic metal but has lots of experimental approaches lurking around every corner. The ratio of accessible to avant-garde leads more towards the accessible but when it gets weird there's no holding back. I should've started listening to these from the beginning because this is a keeper.

Report this review (#1535131)
Posted Thursday, March 3, 2016 | Review Permalink
3 stars Jeez, I remember when this came out. I remember buying one of the songs from it and it being my favorite Buckethead song for a while. That song was "Crack the Sky", one of Buckethead's coolest tracks. I had only been a Buckethead fan for around a couple years at the time of this album's release, and I had zero idea he would keep the Pikes series going along for so long. There have been 230 more Pikes released since the release of this one at the time of me writing this. That's a lot. Most of them have been of high quality too, but this one is actually not one of the best. It's good, very unique sometimes, but it's overall an enjoyable experience that I get a kick out of.

This album is kind of a jack-of-all-trades Buckethead album. He hadn't really gone full swing Pike-mode yet, so he was still in the mood for heavy metal with funk, electronic, and experimental influences. This album has lots of brilliant soloing and riffing and crazy funky bass playing. It also has a heaping helping of experimental craziness. Basically you can narrow this album down to two sections: the serious sections, and the experimental sections.

For the serious sections of the album, we've got three killer tracks, "Lebrontron", "Crack the Sky", and "Brooding Peeps". All of these are magnificent. They are all basic metal songs played in the classic Buckethead fashion, which means lots of interesting licks, brilliant soloing, and great riffs. "Crack the Sky" is absolutely freaking stellar. This song was one of my very favorites as a child, and it hits me hard with nostalgia. I remember jamming to this song on my way to school each morning. The riffing in this one is fantastic, and this was one of the songs that made me a heavy metal fan. The other two similar tracks are great too. "Lebrontron" is a great start to the album, with simple, warm solos and upbeat riffing that makes for an overall great track. "Brooding Peeps" is in the same vein, with some wonderful soloing and wicked riffing at the end that break this track into the top 3 on the album. The lead melodies on these songs, especially "Brooding Peeps", earn big points for me, he tempers the solos with some rather beautiful lead sections that add lots of dimension to some already great songs. These three are the crown jewels of this interesting crown, and are all worth listening to.

The rest of the album is all experimental and crazy. Expect odd note patterns, weird sound effects all over the place, and some deliciously funky bass playing. A lot of people forget to mention this, but Big B can absolutely molest your eardrums with his funky bass playing. Maybe that was a weird way of putting it, but yeah, he plays some great funk bass lines here. There are also lots of weird electronic drum beats that wouldn't be out of place in maybe a techno song. While some of Buckethead's experimental work can be brilliant, some of the songs here are examples of it being out of place. The best of the experimental songs on the album is definitely "Picking the Feathers", which is full of odd rhythms and some great (but weird) riffs. I also really enjoy "Tonka", with it's unique riff patterns and some pretty cool experimental sections. "Barnyard Banties" also has some wicked bass playing; slap-style goodness with lots of filter effects layered on. If you enjoy experimental rock or metal, you will love these tracks and I do recommend them.

Overall, this isn't bad at all, just a bit awkward at times. The Pike experience is a very long journey, and this might be a turn off for non- fans. It's not one of his best works at all, in fact, this one is probably a little below average for most of the Pike material. Not crazy enough to earn big points for me, but not straightforward enough to win big points in that respect either. This album isn't bad at all, it's a rather fun listening experience, and as a whole, I do really enjoy this album, especially "Brooding Peeps" and "Crack the Sky", both of which are really nostalgic with me. In the end, this is another quality Buckethead release, but definitely not one of the better Pikes.

Originally written for The Metal Archives

Report this review (#1554722)
Posted Friday, April 22, 2016 | Review Permalink

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