Cypress Hill - III (Temples of Boom) [30th Anniversary Edition]

After Black Sunday sold three million copies and put Cypress Hill on every festival stage in America, the obvious move was another Insane In The Brain. Instead DJ Muggs made Temples of Boom, the darkest, slowest and least commercial record the group ever released, and it is the one heads have argued for ever since.

The beats here are genuinely oppressive: minor key loops, organ drones, drums buried so deep they sound like they are coming through a wall. "Throw Your Set In The Air" was the single and even that is murky by 1995 standards. "Boom Biddy Bye Bye" and "Illusions" push further into the fog, and "Killa Hill Niggas" hands the boards to RZA, which tells you exactly what sonic company Muggs thought he was keeping. Sen Dog is largely absent, having left mid sessions, which leaves B-Real to carry the whole record alone and gives it an isolated quality the earlier albums never had.

It still went platinum, and thirty years on it reads less like a commercial misstep and more like the moment West Coast rap discovered how bleak it was willing to get.

This thirtieth anniversary edition spreads the album across two black vinyl discs on Columbia, with a fourth side of bonus remixes including the Fugees mix of "Boom Biddy Bye Bye" and the harpsichord mix of "Illusions."