BACKWARDS CHIMNEY

1st album out of 60 in 2014 and 72nd overall

All sounds brought to you by Buckethead and all instrumental

This one has 5 tracks that clock in at 29:02

'West Of Arkham' (10:02) begins with a clean guitar, bass and drums but becomes crunchy alternative metal. It slows down after a short lick and becomes clean and echoey. It basically continues too long alternating these attributes. I'm not too thrilled by this one and it's a third of the album. Generic BUCKETHEAD fodder that needs to be fed to the chickens

'Backwards Chimney' (3:33) starts out distorted and heavy right from the start. An alternative metal rocker with a nice catchy melodic riff going on. Much more interesting that than the first track and much shorter! Thank bleep. Get to the point and entertain me and then shut the bleep up already. Nothing against long tracks if they warrant the time expanding qualitative principles of such. This one has nice transitions from heavy to spacey and echoey

'Cloth Held' (6:30) begins heavy and distorted and has a nice riff going on. A little bluesy and thrashy at the same time and lots of cymbal action. Kinda liking this one. Something about the drum beat and the melodic development with the timbres of the grunginess and pacing of the different parts that makes this one work pretty well even though it has all the same ingredients as the first track. It's not what you use, it's HOW you use it! Duh

'Sentinel Hill' (6:15) is another clean guitar starter but a little more on the mid-upper-tempo time range and has drums that seem to want to race ahead before the rest of the other instruments. It becomes another alternative metal rocker with a nice riff but not as good as the last two tracks. I like the slow clean guitar parts that kinda have a chicken clucking swagger to them. He really does love chickens :P

'Other Paths' (2:32) begins cleanly and light and fluffy in the mid-tempo range but bursts into a heavy alternative metal riff and then a sizzling guitar solo erupts into the scene and then all subdues and becomes mellow again. Meh, this one is nothing special

First and last tracks are BORING! The middle is actually pretty interesting although it is so only in melodic developments and interesting arrangements otherwise it sounds similar in the tone and timbre department. I still like this enough for 3 stars