Review: Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom

Artist: Cypres Hill
Album: III: Temples of Boom
Genre: Rap
Release: October 1995
Location: U.S. - Los Angeles, CA

'Temples of Boom' is Cypress Hill’s defining classic.

Cypress Hill released two highly regarded, smoked-out classics prior to this, but they shifted their sound over on ‘Temples of Boom’, resulting in a darker, moody classic that ranks among the best that hip-hop has to offer. Although the subject matter expressed on here is largely the same as before, the amazing beats and production from DJ Muggs puts in a whole new territory. ‘Temples of Boom’ is a consistently superb album, and one that truly benefits from being listened to from beginning to end. Although Cypress Hill have had albums that sold significantly more than this one, ‘Temples of Boom’ remains their best work and one album that I doubt they will ever top.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Future information:

Cypress Hill also plans on releasing another album sometime this year. Let’s just hope it’s better than their mediocre last effort, ‘Till Death Do Us Part.

Review: Korn - Take a Look in the Mirror

Band: Korn
Album: Take a Look in the Mirror
Genre: Nu-Metal
Release: November 2003
Location: U.S. - Bakersfield, CA

This is definitely one of Korn’s strongest efforts and it is their most overlooked album, and if you’re a fan who originally skipped it then it would be a great time to pick it up now.

There was a time when Korn was enormously popular, nu-metal and rap-metal (Coal Chamber, Static-X, etc.) releases topped the music charts, and everyone on the block was wearing a Limp Bizkit t-shirt with their baseball cap turned backwards. By the time ‘Take a Look in the Mirror’ was released in late 2003, though, this period of time was over and this album was ultimately met with disappointing initial sales, resulting in Korn’s lowest selling album to date. That is unfortunate, however, because this is definitely one of their strongest releases. Although it is self-produced and definitely their rawest effort, that doesn’t mean it gets monotonous, though the tracks could use some more variety ala Follow the Leader. While the album sound’s fantastic musically, the lyrics don’t stray too far from every angst-filled Korn album before this, which means they will come off as repetitive to long time fans. Even so, this is definitely one of Korn’s strongest efforts and it is their most overlooked album, and if you’re a fan who originally skipped it then it would be a great time to pick it up now.

Rating: 4.5 (out of 5)

Review: In Flames - Come Clarity

Band: In Flames
Album: Come Clarity
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Release:February 2006
Location: Sweden - Gothenburg

‘Come Clarity’ is one of the most disappointing albums of the year, and a band as talented as In Flames is certainly capable of more than what this record offers.

Although a drastic change in sound is often needed for a long-running band to keep their music fresh, the new changes found on In Flames’ latest release, ‘Come Clarity’, do not work in the band’s favor and ultimately dumb down what was previously a melodically complex, amazing sounding melodic death-metal band. Although ‘Come Clarity’ is still a notch above the musical dreck found on mainstream metal radio, it isn’t by much, and it’s unfortunate that a band that has previously released some of the best metal albums of all time (see: Colony and Whoracle) has fell down to this level. What made In Flames so great before were its unique vocals, which unfortunately are repetitive here, and its melody, which is mostly lost on Come Clarity. ‘Come Clarity’ is one of the most disappointing albums of the year, and a band as talented as In Flames is certainly capable of more than what this record offers.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Welcome to PG Music Reviews!

If there’s one thing I enjoy as much – or possibly more – than playing video games is listening to music. I have a rather large collection of cds and I figured I’d write reviews for many of them here, whether they’re good, bad, or flat-out embarrassing. So in addition to Pro-Gamer, there will be PG Music Reviews (yeah, I got a little lazy with the title, but I’ve never been good at coming up with names for things). Hope you enjoy it, and as usual I will try to update both blogs as frequently as possible. Enjoy.

-Ross, PG Music Reviews writer