Colonel Claypool's Bucket Of Bernie Brains
The Big Eyeball In The Sky

A very strange album.

I find that this is the only definition that can fully express what I felt hearing this bizarre mix of jams, improvisations, and madness created by the Colonel and his hallucinatory partner Buckethead.

The union of these two absurd personalities led to the creation of "The Big Eyeball In The Sky", which also boasts the participation of Bryan "Brain" Mantia on drums (already a member of Primus from 1997 to 2002), Bernie Worrell (keyboardist of Parliament-Funkadelic and Talking Heads), and Gabby La La on choruses in a couple of songs, whom - in my opinion - was certainly not missed.

As can be easily inferred, this gathering of artists with very different musical and stylistic influences brought about the creation of a very varied LP and, if we want to give it also a negative definition, at times disjointed. In fact, one can detect a slight sense of disorientation in various parts of the work, as if expecting something that never comes; in other words, it seems that certain tracks, beyond a good groove and breathtaking execution technique, leave a bit of a bitter taste, realizing that if they were just a bit more elaborated, they could have been much more impactful.

Basically, this album is chock full of brilliant ideas but in various cases left to their own devices. Just listen to a few tracks to notice this "incompleteness": for example, "Hip Shot From The Slab" immediately stands out among the less successful episodes. In this track, there is no development or evolution: for three minutes, the "tattarataataaaraaatattaraa" of the chorus sung (sung?!?) by Gabby La La is just repeated, interspersed with Buckethead's ultra-virtuosic onanisms and Claypool's bass that nevertheless fails to salvage the situation, almost suffocated by the irritating chorus that covers the entire composition. Another poorly executed experiment is precisely the title track, which happens to feature the participation of the aforementioned singer (singer?!?): "The Big Eyeball In The Sky", while initially amusing and catchy, quickly becomes tiring due to its excessive repetitiveness. Excluding these only disappointing moments (damn Gabby La La), the rest of the album is better crafted and more inspired.

Avoiding a long, boring, and heavy track-by-track, I will only talk about the pieces that impressed me the most: the opener "Buckethead" presents good keyboard parts, especially halfway through the track, and a lightning solo by the aforementioned skill monster Buckethead, hyper-speedy and relentless. An exhilarating start, which ties for first place along with "Ignorance Is Bliss": this piece doesn't even seem like it was written by Claypool, especially with the melodic inserts (violin?); even in this one, towards the end there is a solo possibly even better than the previous one. Also very good are "Elephant Ghost" and "Scott Taylor": long tracks, they create a homogeneous and compact soundscape (particularly the first one), leaving free space for Bucket's unhealthy creativity.

Surely, summing up, this is a very good concept, especially thanks to the remarkable technical ability of the individual musicians: "Brain" and the Colonel offer a solid base for Buckethead's electric bursts and Worrell's incursions, and in some episodes, the result is nothing short of excellent.

It's a pity, however, that this artistic verve is not maximized: if some tracks had been better reworked, this work would be complete and unassailable from every point of view.