Chicken Noodles II by Buckethead and Travis Dickerson

If you thought you didn’t get enough with their first offering of melody jam from their album “Chicken Noodles”, Buckethead and his friend Travis Dickerson offer you more of the jam in a sequel titled “Chicken Noodles II”. This time they have a longer album with more songs than the first.

A review of the songs:

1. The chicken or the egg – Sounds bluesy; nice intro jam

2. Ovum Prophecy – Good song, reminding you of chicken noodles 1; faster one but shorter.

3. Concentric Motion – Long song. Starts lovely and melodious and towards the end comes with and nice string arrangements (programmed into the Rhodes?). Sounds Mark Knopflerish but this one is from Buckethead. The soulful playing starts well then gets into a fast pace and then sounds like shredding but just when you think it is going out of control or boring both the instrumentalists come back to end beautifully.

4. Oyster Crackers – Rockier riffs, bluesy notes, long song but doesn’t get boring and you can just let it play.

5. Heat and Save – A song with guitar chords at the beginning and towards the end of the song. Good small song you wonder why it wasn’t accompanied by vocals but the instruments sing instead.

6. Let it cool – Keyboard doubles as bass – Lovely Mark Knopflerish and bluesy sounding guitar for this blues instrumental.

7. Chicken Nostrils – More chords played in this song than single notes but song has an intriguing feel, at 3.45 more single notes are played.

Buy Chicken Noodles II by Buckethead and Travis Dickerson from Amazon.com.

Better still download the album for free at UnlimitedDownloadCenter.com.

This is a shorter review.

Chicken Noodles is a much newer album and my prediction is that it is already anonymous or is going to be forgotten soon but in my opinion this is a landmark album. I haven’t heard of an entire album full of Jam as this. Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew” was a double album of jam but it featured many artistes. However in this album you are only going to hear two instruments, the guitar and the keyboard. The musicians of the album are the highly versatile and immensely gifted guitarist Buckethead whose Monsters and Robots album I reviewed earlier on great-anonymous-albums.com. The other person and worthy of every mention is Buckethead’s associate on the Fender Rhodes, Travis Dickerson. I have listened to the duo on the Population Overdrive album and was very impressed with the keyboard skills of Travis but this albums takes their association to another level.

Running into a little over 50 min this album is enjoyable whether listened to with full attention or while doing other tasks. The album has only 4 instrumentals and they are: 1) Enter Tomorrow (13:07), 2) Loss From a Distance (18:01) 3) Sorrow of Discord (11:28) 4) and False Directions (8:24). Each one is sublime and beautiful in melody in its own way and is sure to transport you to another world of listening enjoyment.

As of today one one review of it exists on Amazon.com and I am not sure how many more will appear but do take a listen to this unusual but superb album from one of today’s finest guitarists.

I have also included it under Acoustic and Instrumental category though I would normally include Buckethead under Heavy Metal.

Buy Buckethead’s Chicken Noodles at Amazon.

Better still download the album for free at UnlimitedDownloadCenter.com.

“Monsters and Robots” by Buckethead

First of all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all you readers. This is another shorter review of mine and of the youngest album I have reviewed here so far on great-anonymous-albums.com.

“Buckethead”, I first came across this unusual name while reading the comments of another reviewer on one of Yngwie Malmsteen’s albums on Amazon.com. I couldn’t believe the reviewer actually wrote that Buckethead is a better shredder than Yngwie. Out of curiosity I couldn’t resist checking Buckethead out and I was hardly prepared for what I was going to be listening to. The first album I checked thankfully was one called “Colma” and the very first song of that album blew me away. I knew I was listening to a great and an unusual guitarist. I then started searching all over the net and did find quite a lot of his songs and information. Everything about Buckethead seemed to arouse more curiosity, his name, his stage appearance wearing a mask and a Kentucky Fried Chicken hat on his head, his theory of being raised in a chicken farm, his goal of an utopian land that he calls Bucketheadland, his strange music and his tall 6ft plus frame. But it was this album “Monsters and Robots” that blew me away. Not only is Buckethead one of the fastest guitarists in the World (ranked at number 8, yes below Yngwie, by Guitar One Magazine in 2003) but it is sad this album remains relatively unknown and anonymous even among heavy metal officianados. Buckethead has been playing in and for several bands now. At the request of Axl Rose he was on tour with Guns ‘n Roses for many of their concerts. Other bands he has played for are Praxis (collaborated with legendary bassist Bill Laswell) Death Cube K and Cobra Strke besides collaborating with other big guitarists and musicians in the industry, such as Boosty Collins and Serj Tankian of Sytem of a Down.

The following is my review of Monsters and Robots on Amazon.com tweaked slightly.

What is the benchmark to check a guitar hero today? Check if guitar was played at 16 notes per second or faster on their latest album? Give us, all guitar listeners, a break! Since the advent of the rock guitar we have all been listening to shreding, shredding and even more shredding for over four decades now. So unless there is something really new and exciting on the market any new guitar album is not welcome here.

Step in Buckethead!

With excellent arrangements (this is very important; the reason why Yngwie Malmsteen can be very boring and dull no matter how good a Guitar God he is), exciting new sounds and effects and a unique playing style Buckethead’s Monsters and Robots is a welcome break from conventional guitar albums in years. Add to it new technologies such as DJ tracks/mixing and M & B becomes a guitar album of the times. But do not dismiss Mr. Buckethead as just innovative or exciting. Buckethead has speed for the demon but unlike the conventional “fastest and therefore greatest guitarist of all time impressionists” Monsters and Robots is not another shredfest from the start till the end. Unlike his other albums a lot of the unusual sounds both human and machine-made, a feature of Buckethead’s albums that normally tend to annoy are also kept to a minimum.

And how many of the guitar albums out there can you name where you can remember the adroit drummer or the fine bassist that accompanied the guitarist? Most guitar albums make supporting musicians seem like session artists. However Buckethead’s albums give drummers and bassists their due without his hogging all the limelight. Check out ‘Revenge of the Double Man’, ‘Stun Operator’ and ‘Stick Pit’ for some fine drumming and for some groovy bass check ‘Stun operator’, ‘Jowls’, and ‘Nun chaka taka’. And if you are a 80′s heavy metal fan there is a gem of an instrumental in ‘Scapula’. ‘Jump man’ is an excellent starter for the album and ‘Nun chaka taka’ the befitting climactic finale. If you are looking for melody this album is not for you but there’s enough excellent shredding to please even the discerning shred lover. Bottomline – Monsters and Robots, certainly not to be dismissed as just another guitar album.

I had posted a review of his “Colma” on Amazon.com too but didn’t give it a 5 star rating but it does have some big stunners.

Check out “Monsters and Robots” and you won’t regret.

Listen to MP3 clips of the songs here.

The album cover shows Buckethead playing left handed but he is in fact right handed.

Wanna find out how Buckethead looks unmasked? Check out the link below.
Buckethead unmasked

If you wish to purchase the CD from Amazon.com click the link below.

Buy Monsters and Robots from Amazon.com

Better still download the album for free at UnlimitedDownloadCenter.com.