PIKE DOORS

PIKE 217 - PIKE DOORS is the 116th album released by BUCKETHEAD in 2015 which is another all instrumental album exclusively played by BUCKETHEAD. The album dons one of my favorite PIKE album covers with a creepy BUCKETHEAD passing through a hall of doors. Ooooo. Scary! This one clocks in at 30:28 and has three tracks called "Door."

"Door One" (17:40) shows this album as one of those slow and ambient releases. It has a dominant ambient synthesizer utilizing some thick atmosphere while a guitar gently plucks and strums and echoes and caresses treble notes. This one has a melodic development although it's slow in its unraveling. This track alone is about 2/3 of the album so it has plenty of time to take its time. Approaching the four minute mark the mood suddenly changes with a highly melodic guitar lick taking the stage and steering the musical development accompanied by tribal drumming percussion. The melody is pretty catchy, one of the most so i've heard of these PIKEs and has a very Pink Floydian type of space rock delivery. If i didn't know any better i'd swear Roger Waters was joining in! I have to admit that most of the time these slow jams just don't do it for me but so catchy this one is with its perfect balance of space rock guitar, background ambience and hand drums that i'm totally hypnotized by its beauty. There is life after the Halloween countdown! Why'd it take so friggin' long?!!!

"Door Two" (10:03) starts out a little rougher with power chords strutting alternating with silence and then joined in by a lead guitar. All is mid-tempo at first but picks up the pace a little bit with more distortion in the rhythm guitars, slightly faster lead guitar and a regular rock bass and drum combo. While this track is much more rockin' it still maintains the space rock vibe of the first track only this clearly crosses over into space metal territory with its intensity. The solos can get blistering and quite fast. The solos go on for many minutes to the end but unlike many of the past ones i actually find this one works for some reason.

"Door Three" (2:45) starts out somewhere in between the pace of the other two tracks. Not as slow as the first and not as fast as the second. It has an echoey guitar that gets joined by a bass and drums and eventually lead guitar lick. Once again the melody is addictive with tastiness afoot, cool guitar riffs, excellent shredding skills and a melodic development that puts the most recent PIKEs to shame. This is one that ends too soon and i actually want more! That hasn't happened in a while!

This is a great return to form. The melodies on this one make this a special one that actually deserves 4 stars. I just wish more of them were like this. When BUCKETHEAD misses, he misses badly but when he hits the target there is nothing better. Bullseye with this little gem.