Bitesize: Trollheart's Daily Album Mini-Reviews

Trollheart · 02-13-2013, 09:58 AM

Buckethead may not be God, but he's up there beside him

Artiste: Buckethead
Nationality: American
Album: Electric sea
Year: 2012
Label: Metastation
Genre: Instrumental/classical
Tracks:
Electric sea
Beyond the knowing
Swomee swan
Point doom
El Indio
La wally
La Gavotte
Bachethead
Yokohama
Gateless gate
The homing beacon
Chronological position: Thirty-fifth album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Where's the mad shredding? Hey, this is nice!
Best track(s): Swomee swan, La Gavotte, Yokohoma
Worst track(s): Negative on that one, son!
Comments: You can all laugh at me, but after suffering through Neal Schon's indulgence-fest "The Calling" recently I swore I would never listen to another guitar instrumental album, yet this one was on my ipod and I'd heard good things about Buckethead from among others, Mrd00d, so I decided to give him a chance. Truth to tell, I wasn't expecting much: I mean, how good can a guy who calls himself Buckethead and wears a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head (hence the name) be, really? To say I was stunned by what I heard is a total understatement. This album is full of gentle, introspective, almost classical (in some cases literally) music played by the guy on a succession of guitars, and yet despite there being nothing else but guitar music --- no keyboards, no percussion --- it never once flags and never sounds in the least boring. Mr. Schon, please take note!

Every track is great, and yet most of them while quite similar are very different. The title, and opening track, is a mixture of lovely acoustic and smooth electric guitar, while Beyond the knowing (apparently an instrumental interpretation of one of his earlier songs) is pure classical guitar played in a laidback yet intense way. I love the way this is such an intimate album that you can hear Buckethead's fingers sliding along the strings; there's no other instruments or heavy production to overshadow his playing, and you really do feel like he's almost in the room playing right beside you. Swomee swan, one of the standouts even if I don't know what the title means, leans a little more into the harder end of the spectrum while still remaining relatively calm and gentle, while Point doom has an almost medieval tint to it, before it takes off into some quite incredible displays of dexterity on the Spanish guitar.

There's a real sense of the Mexican and those old western cowboy style movies to El Indio and he even tackles good ol' Bach, not once but twice, with La Gavotte and the cleverly-named Bachethead, though essentially they're both pretty much the same piece of music, just played a little differently. I'm not that naive to think this is how all of Buckethead's music sounds: I know he works in various genres, and some of his albums could be not to my liking at all. But I'm definitely more open to listening to his music now than I was before I hit "play" here.
Overall impression: Surprised, delighted and much more impressed than I had expected to be. Blown away, in fact. Another four-cookie album!
Intention: I need to hear more... now!

02-13-2013, 09:58 AM	#11 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Buckethead may not be God, but he's up there beside him Artiste: Buckethead Nationality: American Album: Electric sea Year: 2012 Label: Metastation Genre: Instrumental/classical Tracks: Electric sea Beyond the knowing Swomee swan Point doom El Indio La wally La Gavotte Bachethead Yokohama Gateless gate The homing beacon Chronological position: Thirty-fifth album Familiarity: Zero Interesting factoid: Initial impression: Where's the mad shredding? Hey, this is nice! Best track(s): Swomee swan, La Gavotte, Yokohoma Worst track(s): Negative on that one, son! Comments: You can all laugh at me, but after suffering through Neal Schon's indulgence-fest "The Calling" recently I swore I would never listen to another guitar instrumental album, yet this one was on my ipod and I'd heard good things about Buckethead from among others, Mrd00d, so I decided to give him a chance. Truth to tell, I wasn't expecting much: I mean, how good can a guy who calls himself Buckethead and wears a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head (hence the name) be, really? To say I was stunned by what I heard is a total understatement. This album is full of gentle, introspective, almost classical (in some cases literally) music played by the guy on a succession of guitars, and yet despite there being nothing else but guitar music --- no keyboards, no percussion --- it never once flags and never sounds in the least boring. Mr. Schon, please take note! Every track is great, and yet most of them while quite similar are very different. The title, and opening track, is a mixture of lovely acoustic and smooth electric guitar, while Beyond the knowing (apparently an instrumental interpretation of one of his earlier songs) is pure classical guitar played in a laidback yet intense way. I love the way this is such an intimate album that you can hear Buckethead's fingers sliding along the strings; there's no other instruments or heavy production to overshadow his playing, and you really do feel like he's almost in the room playing right beside you. Swomee swan, one of the standouts even if I don't know what the title means, leans a little more into the harder end of the spectrum while still remaining relatively calm and gentle, while Point doom has an almost medieval tint to it, before it takes off into some quite incredible displays of dexterity on the Spanish guitar. There's a real sense of the Mexican and those old western cowboy style movies to El Indio and he even tackles good ol' Bach, not once but twice, with La Gavotte and the cleverly-named Bachethead, though essentially they're both pretty much the same piece of music, just played a little differently. I'm not that naive to think this is how all of Buckethead's music sounds: I know he works in various genres, and some of his albums could be not to my liking at all. But I'm definitely more open to listening to his music now than I was before I hit "play" here. Overall impression: Surprised, delighted and much more impressed than I had expected to be. Blown away, in fact. Another four-cookie album! Intention: I need to hear more... now! __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 01-13-2015 at 12:27 PM.