Their three previous albums have all gone gold or platinum, yet the group has never been considered in the same vein of "hip-pop" as Puffy or Will Smith. DJ Muggs deserves a good deal of the credit for the group's appeal. Though the Wu-Tang's RZA is usually thought of as the master of dirty, dusty grooves, Muggs was pumping out grimy, bass-heavy beats years before RZA gained any notoriety. Muggs' productions are distinctively funky yet fairly simple in nature. He excels in finding thick, rolling baselines and then adds drum tracks dragged through the sonic dirt of the SP1200 sampler (the sampler of choice for early hip-hop producers).

The results are songs that still crackle with the static of vinyl records, resulting in a deliciously dark sound that captures the urban underbelly of a decaying Los Angeles. When Muggs rres these tracks up, there's a frantic, rushed feel to them, raw aural adrenaline that pumps across the speakers. Dropped into a slow tempo-ed groove, songs like "Tequila Sunrise" mimic the effects of a dope high, altering reality like paranoia-inducing mood swings. But 17 songs is simply to long. Sure, there are some great-sounding songs, but the lesser filler is made all the more mediocre by the lack of musical diversity on the album.

The same goes for doing the same kinds of lyrics to death, and B-Real and Sen Dog can't seem to invent any concepts that they haven't already played with dozens of times before. The album starts with "Through the Eye of the Pig," which copies the same anti-police vibe that the group kicked off with its first hit, "How I Could Just Kill A Man" (on Cypress Hill's self-titled first album). Great urban politics for certain, but what's new, docs? Simply said - no new surprises here, though the hypnotic beat of "High Times'" was worth at least one listen through. But what did you expect from Cypress Hill? No matter how down on them you get, they still turn out the kinds of records that at least half a million people want to buy. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.