Buckethead- Captain EO's Voyage (2010)

Bucket has been on a bit of a binge lately, when he moved out of the “Rock period” in the great 2007 musical extravaganza, his solo albums took a much more somber approach, with slower, quieter, and a bit more technical guitar albums that were much more atmospheric than his riff based, structured albums in the previous 2-3 years.

Captain EO’s Voyage is an album that I’m surprised he didn’t do a year sooner. The more culturally aware would know right off the bat that the title is a tribute to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, and in form, there seems to be more of a soulful edge to the songs than on 2009’s “A Real Diamond in the Rough” or early 2010’s “Shadows between the Sky”. With instrumental albums especially, it can be very difficult to do song by song reviews, which is a shame because in many cases there is just as much, if not more going on.

Buckethead isn’t known for having the most earth-shattering production by any means, but it’s worth nothing that he is very meticulous, and that things are usually quite intentional on his albums. On several of the songs tracks, there’s a pretty heavy amount of reverb and echo. Dan Monti also provides bass, which Bucket often doesn’t make use of on solo records.

What’s important about this, and any other Buckethead solo album is that Bucket is the star of the show. He’s every bit as talented as Steve Vai, Steve Morse, John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani, Robert Fripp, and Paul Gilbert (who he took a year of guitar lessons from), but he is far more tasteful. When he wants to spend an hour showing off, he doesn’t sit there and play complex arpeggios as fast as he can. He’s done that, and it made Yngwie Malmsteen look like a novice. But that’s not ‘Interesting’ to him.

Where Bucket excels, especially on this record, is to take some emotion, that he’s feeling or that he understands, and convert that flawlessly to his guitar. He can hold that for a minute, or an hour, and play in whatever form, style, or discipline that suits him. Then that music, to the trained listener, can almost always invoke that same emotion in the listener, without ever saying a word. Captain EO’s voyage is full of sorrow, because while a lot of high profile musicians and people obsessed with technicality might dismiss the king of pop, Buckethead understood and loved his music.

Captain EO’s Voyage is more than worth a listen for fans and newcomers alike, and his strongest offering from 2010.