Released: August 17, 2011
Length: 40:22

If I’m not mistaken, Pike #3 is the longest Pike at just over 40 minutes long. That means you get 10 minutes of extra music for the price of a regular Pike! The price of a regular Pike is roughly $1.25 and a common Pokemon card. Like a Pidgey or something, I don’t know. I never collected them.

“Griffin’s Spike” starts with one of those soaring, melodic bits before devolving into a mess of crunchy, fast-fingered electric guitar freak-outs! Then it returns to its main theme. I have nothing more to say about this one! Why did I even bother?!

“Rammellzee .. Hero of the Abyss” is a nerdy title if I’ve ever heard one. A quick search reveals that Rammellzee was a visual artist who has been cited as “instrumental in introducing elements of the avant-garde into hip-hop culture”. That sounds pretty rad to me, actually. I don’t know how Buckethead even lands within 800,000 miles of hip-hop culture, but burying a tribute to him in one of his useless Pikes albums as a send-off is thoroughly touching. I liked reading this part too: “Rammellzee died in New York City on June 28, 2010, at the age of 49, having suffered from the exposure to glue, paint fumes, resin and other toxins through his work and from liver problems.” Yeah, it sounds like a more dignified way of saying that he was huffing a rag for seventeen hours and the police found him trying to pull a noose tied around his dick with his teeth. It’s refreshing to learn something new once in a a while.

Look at this abomination. You may as well launch your loved one into the sun.

We get back to basics on “Floating Graveyard”. It’s a slow, sludgy tapestry of wah-wah guitar tones and plodding drum beats… but then it becomes kind of a mid-tempo groove metal affair. I think this track is pretty cool, but the idea of a floating graveyard sounds terrifying and unfeasible. Where do the bodies get buried? Wouldn’t they just fall out from under and land on the many innocent passers-by below? No one wants someone’s decomposing grandfather’s dismembered limbs falling on their car windshields! Let’s think this one through a little bit more next time.

“Ballad of Jerry Mono” is a relaxing, after school special end credits groove. Comfortable. A life reflection. I’m going to guess that Jerry Mono fell into a month-long sickness during his freshman year at college after kissing Betty Mono on the tongue. They weren’t related, but maybe we should all steer clear of anybody with such a last name, wouldn’t you say?

I knew someone that had mono in college and she was reportedly sick between mid-September and the beginning of November. That sounds absolutely terrifying to me. I couldn’t imagine being sick for six straight weeks, I think I’d rather slit my wrists with a twist tie. I didn’t worry much at the time about contracting mono, but in retrospect I shouldn’t have licked all those chairs in the dorm lobbies.

Howard Dean??

Crunchy blast-beat riffs dominate the first few bars of “H.D. Autopsy” before the psychedelic lead guitar kicks in and echoes across the channels. This leads me to speculate who, exactly, “H. D.” might be. Hugh Downs? Hilary Duff? Haylie Duff? Hope Davis? Hugh Dancey? I could keep going, but I’m not going to also. Also, I couldn’t keep going!

“3 Foot Clearance” hovers around the traditional and crisp guitar hero sound while foraying into crazy territory enough for me to be satisfied. You know how much I love crazy territory. This is one of the better Pikes, and there about 1,600 of them! I digress. Where was I?

Whoops, I zoned out for a bit. I’m on “Battlefields” now. It flits around some traditionally melodic passages and stays grounded on the extra effects. You couldn’t catch me dead on a battlefield. Well… uh, you would, actually, because I wouldn’t last long. I can’t believe it used to be a way of life for kids to just GO TO WAR when they reached a certain age. Like “ok, go to war now”. Like “it’s time for war, go find war”. Fuuuuuck that, holy shit. If someone came up to me and tried to push me into entering a war I’d sock him right in the mouth and then I’d take my musket and I’d shoot everybody who tried to attack me or coax me into battle. I’d retaliate right on enemy lines if I had to! That’ll show you trying to get me onto a battlefield!

Now I’m onto the slow and catchy “Harpoon the Goon”. Have you ever read The Old Man and the Sea? I was told by someone I barely respect that this book is a completely different read for every stage of life. I hated it when I was 18, but maybe I’ll like it at 35? I don’t know why I would, I hate stories about fish. Harpoon the Goon indeed.

“Critical Leg Assigment” is weird. The guitar tones sound like Buckethead is punching keys on a Speak & Spell. Maybe he is! He seems like the kind of guy who would own six Speak & Spells at his age. He seems like the kind of guy I would be friends with in sophomore year of high school and then outgrow the friendship by junior year while he continues playing Magic the Gathering and watching Ed Edd n Eddy.

We end with “X-Ray”, which is just a bunch of buzzing. Good night, everyone!