THE DAY OF THE ROBOT

The third studio album THE DAY OF THE ROBOT proves a couple things. Firstly, BUCKETHEAD really likes robots and is becoming a focal point for album titles and secondly, he is very eclectic. After displaying his guitar virtuosity on the first two albums, the chicken lover takes a new approach here. While there is guitar virtuosity taking place at certain points in the album, the emphasis is on electronica for the most part.

The first track 'Destroyer' has four parts and begins quite aggressively with a type of industrial metal that churns on for a while but it eventually slows down into a thrashy power metal chords segment and ultimately winds down with a spacey echoey guitar accompanied by an ambient background. BUCKETHEAD displays a strange yet effective juxtaposition of musical genres.

The rest of the album is a combination by DJ Ninj who whips out the drum and bass (aka old school jungle) but also handles keyboards. Bill Laswell contributes to the lower bass and drums. There is plenty of piano jazz on the keyboards, big beat electronica and at times emerges a funky bass line.

This is a very eclectic album but not one of my faves from BUCKETHEAD. If you are really into the DJ scene you might enjoy this more than me and it is very competently done. I just prefer the more active albums, but i do like to spin this on occasion and it is certainly not a bad album. This is the debut of BUCKETHEAD's electronica side where the guitars take an even lesser role in the overall scene. 3.5 rounded down