Cypress Hill's finest effort yet; here comes the BOOM...
Cypress Hill broke through like a round of buckshot in the early '90s; the first rappers to champion herb, tappin' into the mainstream with 'Black Sunday', but this, their third album, is their best in my opinion. B-Real, Sen Dog, an' DJ Muggs jus' got illness pumpin' through they veins. Muggs was, and still is to this day, unquestionably one of the most underrated producers in the hip hop game. Here he supplies his trademark acoustic bass lines and spooky whines and whistles with plenty of disorienting and hazy interludes as well as excerpts from movies that fit the mood (like Samuel L. Jackson's memorable reciting of Ezekial 25:17 from 'Pulp Fiction'), creatin' a certain dark an' dank mood that permeates the entire recording with horrorcore style organ riffs ringing in the brain cells and a haunting Indian sitar that strides into the layered sounds from out of nowhere at times. Ya got 'Throw Your Set in the Air', an undeniably head-bobbing bit of Cypress braggadocio, 'Illusions', a dark, scary, an' paranoid song with one of B-Real's best and most defiant opening lines ever ("Some people tell me that I need help,Some people can f--- off and go to hell..."), 'Killa Hill N----s', a great track with a jolting bassline and a weird arrangement put together by the RZA and featuring Wu-Tang's U-God spittin' a few bars. The best song on the whole album if you ask me is 'No Rest for the Wicked', a scathing attack on Ice Cube, in which B-Real accuses him of stealing his ideas, and calls him out on being a wanna-be street urchin, sayin' "Shoulda known that you couldn't hang in the alley, Good boy went to school out in the Valley" an' threatin' 'ta "f--- up his good day"; one'a the harshest an' best diss songs ever in my opinion. I also gotta mention 'Locotes', a great song wit' a minimal drum n' bass beat, an' lyrics chronicling a stick-up-kid drama.
If you're not already a fan'a Cypress Hill, then hearing this album probably won't sway you either way, but if you are a fan and you were feeling 'Black Sunday' back in the day or even some of their more recent efforts like last year's 'Skull & Bones', then you should check out this release by all means.
This is great album. Period.
...I am a big Cypress Hill Fan. I think it has to do with the fact that DJ Muggs is on the greatest producers in hip-hop. Suprisingly, Cypress Hill's best songs are slow (Boom Biddy Bye Bye, Illusions, Temple of Boom, ect.). This isn't true for most hip-hop acts that have to rely on their party tracks. Masterpiece.
Best Hill Album ever
Cypress Hill has had great sucess with their Black Sunday. This CD takes more of a dark approach then their past albums. The whole album has dark, mysterious beats that match the great lyrical mind of B-real. Pick this album up! There is not a negative side to this CD. Its one of the best cypress hill albums- if not the best, You Wont Be Dissapointed!
-(Illusions the best song, F**k it there all good!)
D.J MUGGS AT HIS BEST
This is arguably Cypress Hill's best album to date,FLAWLESS ALBUM very rare in todays hip hop I mean hip pop.D.J MUGGS production on this album is SICK,that's why he is one of the best producers in hip hop. ONE LOVE TO D.J MUGGS A PRODUCERS PRODUCER.
Budha Fryed Funkadelic Muzik
I've listened to all cypriss hill cd's and most all of there singles ect. Basically speaking Temple of Boom by far the best over all cd cypriss hill has to offer IMO Indivual songs on the record that really stand out are Illusions and Boom Biddy Bye Bye both of which have remix versions as well
Four years since the L.A. group's first pro-pot anthem, "Stoned Is the Way of the Walk," Cypress Hill is still telling us they love to smoke ganja. How B-Real and Sen Dog waste their days is their business, but it makes you wonder: What's wrong with their personal lives that they need to be stoned all the time? And how can they be so enthusiastic about it? III (Temples of Boom) exhales the same clouded sentiments of past albums, but offers no answers.
Herb is never far from the conversation on Cypress Hill records--how they smoke more than anyone, how they were rapping about it before anyone--but they never explain why, never suggest they derive something positive (or negative) from pot. Though III's "Illusions" begins with an Indian sitar, presumably a reference to '60s drug culture's Eastern influence, there's no expanded consciousness in the accompanying raps. Cypress Hill champion drug use, it seems, to bolster their outlaw image; they place pot smoke alongside beat-downs, just another illegal activity to prove they're bad dudes. --Roni Sarig