Sometimes doing song by song reviews seems boring and uncreative, and sometimes I need a way to stretch out my reviews because I think it looks bad when the review takes up less pagespace than the album art. Buckethead manages to solve the problem for me though, by making music faster than he can come up with song titles. Not only are all but 1 track untitled, but the album itself is listed as untitled, although the cover does say “Happy Holidays”. But as I jump to conclusions on that, I realize that each song really is its own monster, so hear goes a bit of a mix.So lets start with the new, Buckethead seems to have some new fancy dancy guitar effects and a new and revamped tone, which is good, because I’m not sure if he could have pulled off A Real Diamond in the Rough/Shadows Between the Sky/Captain EO a fourth time in 2 years. After those three releases, with some avant-garde albums, collaborations, and the long awaited banjo album out of his system, Buckethead seems ready to return to the Rock oriented style he used in the mid 2000s up to 2008. This reminds me a bit of “Albino Slug”, but only slightly. The first two songs are riff based, with the second being the heavier of the pair. The third song mixes in an intro reminiscent of his recent calmer works, and then a body of work that’s pretty unique from everything else he’s done.
The fourth song could easily be the groundwork for a darkish melodic metal song and the fifth track is as Christmas-y as it gets. Since Buckethead likes to explore ideas for extended periods, usually tracking one or two lines of thought through an entire album, this makes for great listening but difficult reviewing. This is still true with Happy Holidays, but he mixes up the formula for some distinction. Track 6 has the heavy and dark edgy riff to have been on Cuckoo Clocks of Hell, but with a bit more “Soar” in the guitars, falling midway in the song to a potentially new direction for Bucket’s music. The seventh song makes use of some electronic manipulations ala Kaliedoscalp, and some general syncopation and other niceness.
Track 8 is a heavier song with guitar effects that remind me of Giant Robot and other very early BH releases. Track 9 has the same synthy background effects as EO’s Voyage, but with a more effective, louder guitar presence. One of the most relieving things to hear back are the finger flashing solos. I like albums like Population Override and Colma as much as anyone, and Bucket needs a few albums to breath sometimes, but with discretion, he can really put on a shred show. If Bucket moves into a direction making use of heavily syncopated riffs and shredding, I wouldn’t complain even one bit.
Track 10 seems a bit more restrained, but near the end of the song, Bucket starts really ripping. He’s clearly bored with the quieter, introspective tracks. Track 11 is the most out of place, much similar to Kaliedoscalp work, it’s got a lot of very strange sounding guitar effects, not the most pleasing to the ear if you’re looking for easy listening, but still quite entertaining. Track 12 makes use of some guitar muting and general weirdness on an acoustic, It’s hectic and strange, but nowhere near as offbeat as 11. The final track is all of 49 seconds, and sounds somewhere between the slow death of a robot, and the slow death of a guitar. For all his brilliance we must keep in mind that Sir Bucket is a remarkably strange human being (Assuming he’s human, that is), and that’s as best I can explain track 13.
If this is a reprieve album before moving back to the introspective/chilled music, I’ll be a tad disappointed, because although I’ve enjoyed all three of the three released in 2009/2010, I feel like this line of thought has a lot to be explored, and there are a lot of really great songs, especially track 4. Maybe I’m just trying to mash together my favorite things, but the melodic metal world is one of the things Bucket’s never fully explored and I think he’d do it masterfully. Given that I reviewed this immediately as I heard it, I can’t say for certain where it ranks among Buckethead’s recent releases, but I like it a lot.
(Note: the album cover shown is one of several of the available "Limited Edition" covers, as I'm pretty sure they're mostly individually drawn)
No comments:
Post a Comment