

So much so that it draws you in and speaks to you. There's a certain beauty in some music that's relatable something that's down-to-earth and honest in being.

I urge anyone to listen to this album, regardless of your music taste, because pretty much everyone has a soft spot for calm music like this. Overall, this is a beautiful record, and I listen to it all the time at the time of writing this review, I've listened through the entirety of Colma a total of 16 times, having listened to songs off it a total of 302 times (last.fm be blessed). I often confuse "Machete" with "Santum", or "Lone Sal Bug" with "Wondering", and this is because they just seem to be written following very similar structures and progressions, and while they're all great tracks, they do feel like the same thing.

The drum beats in different songs ("Whitewash", "Hills of Eternity" and "Santum") feel too similar and monotonous, and some of the songs that lack drums can end up being a bit similar to each other. The only thing I can criticize about this album, just a tiny bit, is that it can get somewhat repetitive. this album just has good title-music pairing, that's all. As I mentioned as I was beginning to write this review, these songs are death-like calm they feel like a last breath before eternal slumber, and this is exactly what the album is about, and a prime example of managing to convey a message, or an array of emotions, through just music, without any words, or to explain it in some other way, this album just wouldn't hit the same if it was titled "Super Happy Land" and a title such as "Santum" was titled "Ice Cream River". There are some songs that give us different approaches, however: "Big Sur Moon" is a short but interesting track where a delay pedal plays a massive role and turns a rather simple arrangement into a mystical tune, and the title track "Colma" is a really calm experimentation where a single guitar produces an entire thick atmosphere that envelops the listener.Īll the songs on this album are simply beautiful and relaxing, and the whole record switches from dark and gloomy to hopeful and sweet constantly. The album is characterized by, mostly, acoustic guitars strumming and arpeggiating in the background, while effect-ladden guitars play melodious licks which are calming and simply beautiful. The record takes us through 13 tracks of mostly-dark ambient music, where arpeggiated guitars complement with slick bass lines and lo-fi drum beats in order to provide us with emotional, yet simplistic arrangements which show Buckethead alternative's side, which was, up to this point, only ever seen just a little bit on his Dreamatorium album, released in 1994 under the name "Death Cube K".Įven though there's a total lack of lyrics, as the entirety of this album is instrumental and not a single voice is to be heard in its 54 minutes and 21 seconds of duration, all 13 tracks speak to you, through their thick atmospheres, or through Bucky's fantastic guitar solos in a few songs. Unlike his previous experimental, metallic albums, Colma is a slow-paced, calm and gloomy acoustic album, where melody and atmospheres become the main focus of the music. True to its name, this album is gloomy and death-like calm, and is a total shift of Buckethead's style up to the point in time in which this album was released. The name of the album comes from a small town in California, where the population of the living is outnumbered a thousand to one by the population of the dead, as Colma is basically a massive cemetery. Colma is Buckethead's 4th full-length album, and it was supposedly written and recorded at a time in which Bucky's mom was fighting an illness.
