Skull & Bones

THE SMOKE has cleared, now we can get a good look at the bodies.

DJ Muggs has got to be the best named producer in hip hop - even his civilian handle, (Lawrence) Muggerud, suggests some compound cannibalisation of the words 'muggy' and 'moribund'. And true to either name, his production jobs on classics like Black Sunday and Cypress Hill III: Temples Of Boom were real pea soupers: EC comics goth-rap masterpieces, toker's poker clubs which depended on what was concealed, or at least obscured, rather than laid out on the table.

Skull & Bones, however, is a much more overt affair than you'd expect. Perhaps it's the residue of Muggs' hi-tech, high definition work on Tricky's Juxtapose, perhaps it's the commercial contexts offered by the likes of Jay Z, DMX and even Dr Dre that make it alright to be bright.

Besides, when B Real bawls 'Can I Get A Hit', you still know he's not talking about the midweek sales returns. Then there's the single 'Rap Superstar' (featuring Eminem) and its twin 'Rock Superstar' (with Everlast and The Deftones' Chino on the mic), a protest against the debasement of the rap form as a quick buck career step, all set to a sub-Zep thrash routine which seems to lampoon Puffy's 'Come With Me'.

This tune heralds a six-part suite of rap-metal routines, the best of which is 'Valley Of Chrome'. Heavy-hop is a genre that has produced some wild records (The Chili Peppers' Freaky Stylee for one) but also has much to apologise for (frat-metal crap like Limp Bizkit). However, the Hill know what they're doing, going for the garage rather than the stadium, creating a mongrel beast so pitbull vicious it makes Run DMC/Aerosmith and Public Enemy/Anthrax precedents sound positively pampered.

Elsewhere though, it's business as usual, with mock gangsta routines ('routines' in the Burroughs-ian sense of the word) such as 'Cuban Necktie', 'We Live This Shit' and 'Stank Ass Hoe' dicing deep heat beats with Spanglish stoner nonsensibilities.

In a way, the most evocative piece of music on the new album is also one of the shortest. The 35-second coda to 'Rap Superstar' is one clanging chord, repeated, over a solemn beat, like Sergio Leone gone ghetto, and you can just see our three protagonists squinting through the smoke, bleary with weed, a bunch of bad rap hombres in a Mexican stand-off waiting to blast their way out of the barrio - a waiting that could go on forever. With its air of weariness and apprehension, this abandoned trailer's presence on the landscape seems to ask more questions of hip-hop's future - about the hellhound on the trail of Jay Z, Puffy, ODB and DMX - than a dozen spreads in the Sunday papers. To quote B Real in 'Stank Ass Hoe': 'Suckers wanna floss and play the big boss . . . /What movie are you livin' in and how much did it cost?'

For the answer to this cliff hanger, tune in next year, same time, same channel.