Hi, This is the first hiphop review I've written, so it might be a bit crap... it's just my opinion, but if you're interested in Cypress Hill you should read it anyway. Let me know what you think. PS: I wrote it for our school's newspaper. You can skip the first paragraph if you want - it's basically an introduction to Cypress Hill (if I got any facts wrong, please correct me, cos the article hasn't been printed yet). snip---- Cypress Hill IV: Return of the Buddha Monks? Having always been a fan of Cypress Hill I was especially excited when their latest album, simply entitled 'Cypress Hill IV', hit the shelves on 5th October. The rap crew from LA got famous in 1991 for their debut album 'Cypress Hill', which is still a must-have for any serious hip-hop head and has to be one of the best west-coast albums ever published. The Hill is not only known for its quality music, they were also the first rappers to openly advertise the joys of smoking weed and great uproar was caused by DJ Muggs when he lit a joint during a live TV show in the US. However, the smoke seems to have got into their heads and after the first album, the quality of their music has been decreasing steadily. Their second album 'Black Sunday' had some great songs on it, but I found it slightly repetitive and the downfall of Cypress Hill continued with a terrible third album entitled 'Temple of Boom'. Still hoping for some miracle to happen I watched the group closely, read every article, listened to every interview on the radio and even went to their concert in London this September. Everything sounded very promising with Cypress Hill DJ and producer Muggs announcing that their new album would be something completely different with new styles and a more funky flavour to it - something Cypress Hill was famous for in 1991. All hyped up by the media I got the album the day it came out and popped it into my hi-fi: The first song was quite impressive with a cool beat and tight lyrics (explicit as ever). "Looking Through The Eye Of A Pig" Hmm, where have we heard that before? Anyway, the rest of the album is original - if you don't count all songs about smoking spliffs of course - and the beats go well with B-Real's crazy vocals. Muggs did some amazing mixing and altogether I think he kept his promise - Cypress Hill IV shows some major improvements. About 6 or 7 songs on the CD are disappointing in that they don't offer anything new, but the remaining 10 tracks are very varied - sometimes the speed goes up to 120 bpm which is unusual for hip-hop and Muggs is very imaginative with the background instrumentals (check out Lightning Strikes - it features electric guitars!). Unfortunately Cypress Hill will never live up to their first album and 'Cypress Hill IV' just doesn't offer a great consistency - there are too many fillers and too many songs 'to get blunted to'. Another thing I have to criticise is how the Hill keeps on contradicting itself. There was a very comprehensive and positive article about the weed-loving rap crew in "The Independent" a few weeks ago (go figure...) and Muggs proudly stated, that "Everyone was talking about niggers and bitches... We offer something different." I almost laughed when I listened to "IV" which has got either word in the chorus of every second track. On the song "Can You Handle This" (only released on the "Tequila Sunrise" single) they diss Wu-Tang for just talking about competition and rational weapons, while Cypress Hill, on the other hand, is all about the "Mary Jane shit". Funny that there's a whole song on "IV" dedicated to the Magnum pistol ("Steel Magnolia") Verdict: If you're a fan, you'll like this album, but if you're looking for quality hip-hop, you should check these out first: Less aggressive hip-hop: Jurassic 5 - Jurassic 5 Aceyalone - A Book Of Human Language (hard to get in the UK, but perhaps the best rap album of 1998) And if you don't mind bad language: Gang Starr - Moment of Truth Black Star (Mos Def & Kweli) - Black Star Favourite tracks: Checkmate, Prelude Of A Come Up, Tequila Sunrise, Audio X Rating: 3 out of 5 <--------------------------------------------------> Have a nice day! - Sebastian Stein