The guitarist known as Buckethead is daring, in that he blatantly abuses the convenience of high-quality home recording technologies. His jagged trance dance pop ideas are great (he had contributed to Bill Laswell's Praxis project for the album Transmutation some years ago), but was a little too undeveloped, confused and still in the "in progress" stage. The core of each number here is that one sound repeats over and over, much like how an advanced schizophrenic might hear voices, and it sticks with the listener's brain like Spam long after the fact that the CD player has been shut off, or unplugged for that matter. I suspect that Buckethead might have been exposed to King Cobb Steelie without paying attention to what they really do, so I suspect Buckethead must have listened to them while being inside a shopping mall eating fast food, near the end of the work day when shit is too dry and has been sitting there under the heat lamps for too long. Weak beats equals wearing out the stop button.
(Stray)Buckethead
Somewhere Over The Slaughterhouse
BY Roman SokalPublished Apr 1, 2002