Another project of the one and only Buckethead, Zillatron is a funk-metal outfit that includes star bass-player Bootsy Collins and musical ace, Bill Laswell. Combining the heavy chunky guitar riffs of Buckethead, and funky bass guitar lines of Bootsy and the unique keyboard flourishes courtesy of Laswell, Zillatron's
Lord of the Harvest is a musical force to reckoned with and gets much less recognition then it deserves.
Opening track
C.B.I. (Central Bug Intelligence) an "instrumental" track starts out with creepy, spacey atmospherics and a deep, distorted, robot voice. Not really much to this song, but it sets the mood for the rest of the album, which continues to have that spacey, almost futuristic feeling to it.
Bugg Lite starts out with a funky bass line and a programmed, distorted hip-hop drum beat. After a few seconds, a heavy doom-influenced guitar line comes in, hand and hand with Bootsy 's immediately recognizable vocals. The vocals cut out to jazz keyboards and then another funky bass line. They use some cool effects on the bass to spice it up a bit and creates some great new textures within the music. The bass line continues, interwined with the jazzy keyboards until a brief, yet uplifting and powerful guitar solo, which goes from neo-classical to a sound reminescent of Slash's lead playing on
Appetite for Destrcution.
Fuzz Facestarts with the creepy robot voice again, and when the music comes in, it continues the emphasis on being creepy. The guitar-line sounds like it is something of a horror movie, and with the underlying bass line perfectly complimenting it. A series of movie sound clips come in, none really related with each other. Still though, they seem to fit perfectly with the music. About half-way through the bass-line intensifies and there is a flurry of quick riffs and solos, before a chunky funk guitar line comes in. The guitar solo is very bluesy influenced at first, but then changes into something that could've come out of a video game.
Exterminate starts out silent, with few sound clips here and there, but then becomes a full throttle thrash song. The drums include high tempo double bass work and a fast palm muted guitar riff. Towards the end, it becomes even more intense, and becomes near death metal. It finally ends with weird voices and more sound clips.
Smell the Secret is the weakest song on the album by far. It's not nearly as diverse as the other songs, and follows the same repetitive pattern. Its actually a pretty boring song.
Count Zero opens with hip hop drums and an almost doom influenced funk bass-line (if that's even possible) This song is a letdown as well though and the same bass and drum patterns repeat over and over again.
Bootsy and The Beast picks things up again though, and in a great fashion. It actually starts with the main riff from the Deli Creeps song
Can I Get A Ride? and has a very unique drum pattern, incorporating ridiculously fast and well timed bass pedal riffs. Over the course of the song, solo's are added on top of the riff creating many different layers of uniquely arranged instrumentation. Most of the leads are simple, yet do a great job of conveying the paranoid, and scared theme the album gives off.
No Fly Zone (The Devils Playground actually beginnings very happy and uplifting, which is strange for this album, but as the guitar comes in, it quickly reverts bad to the somewhat depressive mood of the rest of the CD. Theres a very well-played bass solo towards the end, which brings in slapping tapping and every other bass technique under the sun. It's crazy how on most albums the bass takes the background, but on this one its the forefront, and actually being a lead instrument.
The Passion Continues kind of sounds like an acoustic disco song strangely enough. Throughout the song, there are slow finger picked acoustic guitar melodies, intertwined with disco-like background vocals and Boosty's soulful voice, declaring his love to an un-named recipient.
Once again, Buckethead goes against the grain, creating one of his most innovative albums to date. Virtually incorporating musical elements from almost every genre,
Lord of the Harvest has something everyone can enjoy. From funk to metal, hip-hop to disco, this album is something that truly must be listened too, to be believed.