Exactly, Rise Up Cypress!

When I first got a good look at the track list for Cypress Hill’s new album, entitled Rise Up, my eyes popped, I fainted a little and then decided I had to digest it. The people involved in making this album are like a big ice-cream filled with all the delicious flavors in the world. To picture the result is to see the ice-cream literally fall on the floor and on top of it be ran over by a giant truck wheel.

The first two tracks are so mediocre you literally choke that ice-cream up your nose. See I like B-Real’s voice and he has this clearly distinguished kind of rap rhythm. Most of the time it’s cool cause he’s like the Cypress Hill brand but here it just sounded like expired ice-cream. Moving on we get to the song, called Rise Up. Even before I ever looked at the song’s credits, the sole album name instantly took me to a Rage Against The Machine feeling. Tom Morello is guest on this track (and two more), a song that is only instrumental worth mentioning. Because it’s Tom doing what he did with Audioslave and Rage Against The Machine, again now with the hole reunion. Of course I like Rage. Hello, take the blue pill, take the red pill, I had to adore Rage. But it just doesn’t fit

Continuing with Pass The Dutch. That announces from the credits that some Indian, exotic vibe is coming your way. Still, great vibe doe to very prolific Dj-s, ergo Dj Khalil and Dj Muggs (producer of the masterpiece Jump Around among other stuff). Again, nice with the instrumental, but the lyrics and the voice are purely cliché.

Carry Me Away features Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park. Yes, that band that is supposedly (and they better) set to provide a new album towards the end of the year. Because of its featuring of course, this track I was mostly interested in. Predictably but nicely enough, Mike brought a certain dramatic softness and producer finesse alongside Cypress Hill sound. Another missed musical figure of the teenage musical frenzy is System of a Down. Here in the form of Daron Malakian on Trouble Seeker that does exactly what Tom Morello and Mike Shinoda did. Nothing new, same good sound characteristic to their bands and just mashed with Cypress Hill. This is 2010, can we please move forward from just mashing things. I mean when you mash 'Toxic' from Britney with 'Faint' from Linkin Park (I think), it’s funny. But it’s not good for an album.

Another eclectic choice for a featuring is Everlast on Take My Pain. The song is an album fill-up but just the mentioning of Everlast made me 'Jump Around' a little bit. And Malcom McLaren (RIP) credited as writer on I-Unlimeted that is a tribute song for the previous mentioned 'Jump Around' at the chorus. On Shut Them Down and Strike The Match, placed towards the ending of the album, Tom Morello does his string magic again. This time around a certain harmony between the voice and the instrumental takes place. But only because B-real & Co drift at voice tone towards de la Rocha. And that is why there is only one Zach de la Rocha.

Last track on Rise Up is Armada Latina. Merry match in the skies! No really, surprisingly they all fit. Marc Anthony is a great singer (no pondering there) and is perfect for the type of Hispanic musical influence that Cypress tried here. It seems as the best collaboration, better said the real collaboration on this new brand Cypress Hill - track list. To expect and think the song is a joke is not looking closely and really listening to Armada Latina. Safe to say their sins washed a little with such a closure. But for an album of 17 tracks and with that list of impressive names I really thought they were gonna pull it off. Hey, it’s Cypress Hill.