PASSAGEWAYS

An evocative and slow-paced BUCKETHEAD, could turn out to be probably, the best BUCKETHEAD version of himself

One of my favorite Buckethead (Brian Patrick Carroll) releases, of the zillion cds/downloads, this USA multi-instrumentalist launches each year, "PASSAGEWAYS", 2014, sets itself apart mainly because it is truly poetic in a very uncommonly way for this musician's more upbeat and hard/metal "rocking" musical manners.

Of course its musical direction reaches top of the game Blues/Alt-Rock/Post/Math-Rock altitudes, but far from doing just that, it is inescapable to realize Buckethead's songwriting as performing skills, in a highly emotionally inspired and creative slow/mid tempo environment, come to such non-stop tours de force with extremely focused and subtly-rich compositions and so many perfect-pitch highlights as a 30 minute album could hold.

A prog related artist whose own self-acquired musical idiom trascends taggings and certainly is more than a guitar player virtuoso.

****4, "essential" prog-related release, that will certainly appeal to all kind of prog audiophiles, PA stars.

BUCKETHEAD - PIKE 97 - PASSAGEWAYS 56th album out of 60 in 2014 and 126th overall All sounds brought to you by Buckethead and all instrumental This one clocks in at 29:05 and has five tracks All tracks are titled "Passageway"

"Passageway 1" (5:24) starts out with a slow dreamy ambience and a clean guitar plucking notes slowly. Bass only joins in reluctantly after the minute mark and no percussion to be heard. A nice dreamy melody slowly unwinds. What? This is one of those super slow and sappy PIKEs. But wait. I'm actually liking this one. The melody is soft and sensual as are the synth and guitar tones. It has sort of an epic soundtrack quality to the whole thing and it isn't ruined by out of place sounding phony drumbeats

"Passageway 2" (2:51) continues unperceptibly with the same background ambience only the guitar ratchets up the intensity a bit and a drum joins in for the uptick in speed but then drops out as it slows down and a lead guitar begins a somewhat Floydian meets Celtic Folk type of mix. Cymbals take over as percussion and all remains soft, sensual and dreamy with an addictive melody whisking my attention away. Full percussion joins in but it is done in a complementary way and works quite well. Love this

"Passageway 3" (6:50) also begins imperceptibly but changes it up with a new clean guitar line with background ambience and shortly picks up speed a little with cymbal action and bass but not too much faster, just slightly. A second guitar joins in and the two parts complement each other well as does a symphonic type of synth part. It picks up speed as the different instruments branch out their melodic parts creating a more harmonic experience. This one might go on a bit too long but it's a rather pleasant blend of melodic developments with varying dynamics

"Passageway 4" (3:44) also begins simply by extending the previous track's flow and then changes it up slightly to technically create a new track. This one is exactly the same in that consists of background ambience, a clean melodic guitar and then picks it up slightly to include a bass and drum. The guitar becomes more bluesy and has that semi-Floydian type of feel without hinting of any direct influence.

"Passageway 5" (10:14) also picks up right where the previous left off only whilst maintaining the guitar line, it picks up a little speed and the drums and bass are a little more pronounced and then becomes heavier than it has been the entire run of the album including electric guitar riffs as well as the solo which picks up a little distortion as well. The bass becomes more accentuated and the percussion is in the legit rock format now. The track continues the basic riff and goes on several more minutes. This is about the time the track starts becoming less interesting but just when i'm ready to give up, the guitar picks up intensity and everything else ratchets up accordingly. It

"Passageways" is the way to make one of this mellow albums good. It successfully ratchets up from a soft, sensual and ambient passage to a full fledged rock workout towards the end with each subsequent track ratcheting up the intensity a little bit more. The melodies are more pleasant than other similar PIKEs and despite this being my least favorite type of style in the PIKE series, this one works perfectly as every element is thoughtfully juxtaposed to the other and the net effect is a very pleasant listening experience. Yay!