SOLAR SAILCRAFT

PIKE 119 - SOLAR SAILCRAFT is the 18th album released by BUCKETHEAD in 2015. In accord with the PIKE series this one clocks in slightly over the half hour mark at 30:06 and is all instrumental but unlike many of the PIKES this one has the time divided between ten tracks although seven of them are different parts of a single title - "Toecutter's Cleaver."

The title track begins the album and is a basic instrumental rocker that has a middle-of-the-road rock approach. It's not quite metal or hard rock but it's not quite soft rock either. Basic riffing accompanied by bass, drums and melodic non-virtuosic guitar soloing. This one is pretty blah and quite boring and clocks in at 6:39.

The second track "Flying Saucer" is more energized and has both harder riffs and more ambitious guitar soloing. Okay melodic developments but nothing special. This one clocks in at 3:10 and is slightly more interesting than track one because it's more metal sounding but still just meh.

The next seven tracks make up the seven part series "Toecutter's Cleaver." It starts out with metal riffing, guitar solos and beefy bass and drums. All the parts blend into each other essentially making it one long track. The changes are imperceptible between tracks and despite there being a few progressive time sig changes here and there is pretty straight forward instrumental hard rock all the way through with a variation here and there to change things up but really nothing mind blowing. The emphasis is the usual alternating of riffing and soloing.

The last track is the short 1:21 "Fragments" which is basically a crunchy rocker that sounds much like the super longer PIKES that go on forever but is prematurely aborted in order to keep the album PIKE length. This is yet another well-played but badly delivered album that would surely excite you if this were your first exposure to BUCKETHEAD but will find totally meh if you are more familiar with his canon. 2.5 rounded down