Album Rating: 1.0

Pikes are useless, I include 13 in that. It's the most overrated Buckethead disc in history, you folks worship it unconditionally because oh my god there's a picture of him as a kid with his dad on it so it has to be good. No, it's extremely lazy. No, it's not minimalistic, it's just lazy. Three of the tracks consist of just strumming the same freaking chord which isn't even that interesting in the first place. And when not strumming that chord, he serves up incredibly redundant musical ideas. The leads are pretty good, but he's done better in the past.



Electric Sea's okay. It's a bit heavy on already published material and screwing around with covers though. The last truly solid Buckethead album was Elephant Man's Alarm Clock, with the trio of 2009-2010 mellow albums coming pretty close.

"you folks worship it unconditionally because oh my god there's a picture of him as a kid with his dad on it so it has to be good."

No, I like it because it's great music. You're clearly just biased against it because it's part of the "pike" series. Open your mind and your ears. However, if you REALLY don't like it for the MUSIC, then fine, but don't try and pass off everyone else's opinion as based solely on the cover art.

"The last truly solid Buckethead album was Elephant Man's Alarm Clock, with the trio of 2009-2010 mellow albums coming pretty close."

The Shores of Molokai
It's Alive
Decoding the Tomb of Bansheebot
Crime Slunk Scene
Pepper's Ghost
The Dragons of Eden (w/ Travis Dickerson and Brain)

All extremely solid records. Try again.

yo turnip dollar signs go before the number, not after

review is not bad

Album Rating: 1.0

As you noticed, all my issues with Pike 13 stem from the cover art alone. The cover art is so based on one chord for three tracks, and repetitive in other places. I could write out exactly what makes me not be as fond of each one of those records you posted in comparison to EMAC, but you primarily cited the albums that saw the birth of the "riff autopilot". True, it's not bad per se in its embryonic stages before it became a true autopilot, but it's a transition period from greatness to mediocrity (good thing you didn't cite Albino Slug, as that's the first proper "the hell is this" record).



I don't have anything against Pikes by design. 15 was a pleasant listen, and the underdeveloped nature of the ideas made it sound naive and innocent (but also dumb, unlike SBTS). 8-10 are probably my favourites overall. 7 was the sign that good stuff is coming, but didn't quite pan out yet. Heck, even the revered title track has one of those "basketball song" interludes that balances out the smashing main riff (the single best musical idea Buckethead has conceived in years).



It's hilarious when I look back at times not so long ago, when I was all "yeah, Bucket always made great stuff back when his guitar was tuned down", as if that somehow influenced his creative juices. Now he tuned his guitar down again and he's primarily producing crap. The best down-tuned pikes so far have been 20 (dragged down by a sense of not going anywhere) and 14 (dragged down by production instability and that useless chunk of filler eating up a third of the run time), but none of those are anywhere near his old output.

Album Rating: 2.0

I couldn't care less about Pike 13's cover man. I love Electric Sea, so I was happy to hear another record of his going in that direction. I've been listening some of the recent Pikes and I agree with you they are lazy and unmemorable for the most part.



I don't get why he's releasing them in an unfinished way only to name the songs and titles later (like Forgotten Library I think)

Album Rating: 1.0

I don't really care about the cover either, in all honesty. But the music on it feels just as lazy and unmemorable as the vast majority of the other recent Pikes, but there's a huge buzz about it, so I can't help but think that people may be biased because of the cover.



He's giving them titles and covers now, and instant downloads. I'm extremely vulnerable to instant digital downloads, and caved for all three of 23-25. I shouldn't have.

Album Rating: 2.0

Possibly. I have listened to Telescape, but I didn't like it much. I'll get to Slug Cartilage and the other one soon.

Album Rating: 1.0

This is the one that infuriates me the most of the bunch. It could have gone places. He had a somewhat original idea which he then promptly put on the backburner just to make a Pike happen.



23's a snoozefest, it's just boring tonal riffing along with some occasional space bleeps. 25's a record of one-riff songs - you get the same idea over and over again in the space of the track, but at least the riffs are relatively solid. It's like a hilarious case study in how to present an idea in many different ways without overexerting oneself. If 25's riffs met with 24's chord shapes, something cool may have happened. But hey, he'd have made one Pike instead of two, so didn't happen.

"As you noticed, all my issues with Pike 13 stem from the cover art alone. The cover art is so based on one chord for three tracks, and repetitive in other places."

Please, go read what I wrote again, because from this its pretty obvious you missed the point.

"I could write out exactly what makes me not be as fond of each one of those records you posted in comparison to EMAC, but you primarily cited the albums that saw the birth of the "riff autopilot"."

Just because you "aren't as fond" of them doesn't mean they aren't "truly solid". EMAC is indeed one of his best albums, but he's had plenty of excellent ones since then. You seriously don't think DtToBB, Dragons of Eden, SoM, CSS, etc. etc. were solid records?

"I don't have anything against Pikes by design."

You sure made it sound like you did.