Stoned Raiders

“They say rap and metal will never mix/well all of them can suck our dicks”. The eloquent words of Anthrax, from 1991’s prophetic ‘I’m The Man’. Never did Americans in big shorts speak a truer word. For not only are the rockers looking to the hip hoppers for inspiration, credibility and record sales, but the process is working in reverse.

Having toured with Rage Against Machine, appeared in at Lollapalooza and featured on the Judgement Night soundtrack (a veritable blueprint for the nu-metal sound, search it out), the Hill have returned to the rock rap fusion of late and it’s suited them well.

While there are hints of the old Cypress sound (particularly on nasal voiced ‘Lowrider’), Stoned Raiders is in general a huge leap forward in musical, if not lyrical, terms. Equally at home in the rock or hip-hop camps, guests such as Method Man and nu metal studio king Andy Wallace mix with ease. Occasionally it might stray a little too close to cliché, with ‘Amplified’ and ‘Catastrophe’ sounding a little too like the Chilli Peppers and Limp Bizkit respectively, but few would have foreseen them coming up with something as stunning as the Eastern flavoured ‘Bitter’ when they were tossing those tiresome tales of dope and AK 47s around a few years back. Their best work by some distance, Stoned Raiders sees Cypress Hill bringing hip-hop’s mixed year to a triumphant close.