DISSECTING BUCKETHEAD
Part 2/50
Giant Robot is Buckethead’s follow up to his debut album
Bucketheadland. This album is not to be confused with Buckethead’s old band Giant Robot which released a self titled album.
Giant Robot is one of Buckethead’s best solo efforts to be found in his prolific discography which I will try to review in its entirety (yes, that will include most of the side projects). It is also one of my favorites. Compared to the debut, this album is way more consistent, has better production, and better songwriting. If you are a big fan of his guitar playing/fretboard melting/shredding there is also a lot more of it to be found here.
Buckethead really improved the quality of his recordings when one compares it to
Bucketheadland. For example, there is a new rendition of Buckethead’s old song “Intro – Park Theme”. However, this time it is titled “Welcome To Bucketheadland”. The song has much more realistic drumming, a cleaner solo, an overall tighter sound, and even a few funny samples to boot. On the old album, a lot of tracks sounded like the drums were overly programmed because they usually sounded like they would fit in better on an electronica album. This made the songs interesting sometimes but also made it a lot less organic sounding. However, on
Giant Robot, the drumming is almost exclusively done by multiple session drummers (except for a few tracks) who breathe more life into Buckethead’s music.
Giant Robot is much more consistent throughout when compared to
Bucketheadland.
Bucketheadland, while being a great album, had a few too many campy interlude tracks that were hit or miss and not enough full length songs which made the album as a whole interesting but lacking many highlights other than one or two songs out of 33 tracks. However,
Giant Robot has a lot more 3-6 minute songs that are usually well written. For example, one of the album’s highlights “Binge and Grab” has great guitar riffs and one of Buckethead’s best solos. Also, “Robot Transmission” is a great funk jam which is a perfect length to be interesting without becoming boring. “Star Wars” is a short rock song with a catchy melody. There are also still a handful of funny and campy short tracks to enjoy. “Pure Imagination” has some guy doing spoken word in a weird voice about chickens and a robotic voice comes in and sings that song out of Willy Wonka. I actually thought it was a guitar at first until I picked out the words.
The only problem I really have with this album is that there are a couple of tracks that seem like filler (There really didn’t need to be filler because the album is 19 tracks long). “Chicken” is just some random funky noises for 1 minute that is just stupid. “Pirate’s Life For Me” is some melody that I have heard before that really didn’t need to be included on the album.
Overall,
Giant Robot shows Buckethead improving most of the weak points on his debut. This album has better recording quality, more realistic drumming, and more standout tracks to enjoy. It’s also interesting to see rerecorded versions of older songs such as “Welcome to Bucketheadland”, “I Love My Parents”, and a studio/instrumental version of “Binge And Grab” (originally a Deli Creeps song). This is one of Buckethead’s best albums and a personal favorite of mine.
OVERALL RATING: 4.5/5
