Cypress Hill, Elephants on Acid album review: One hell of a trip

Hip hop pioneers' new album features plenty of brilliant skits, plus nods to classic rock

Cypress Hill are back and better than ever on their eight record 'Elephants on Acid'

On their first album in eight years, Cypress Hill still sound like no one else.

The hip hop pioneers have put DJ Muggs back in the producer’s seat on a record that was born from a dream where Muggs was a man with the head of an elephant. From there, he set out making beats to take the listener on a journey around the world, and into their own mind.

Elephants on Acid is a 21-track monster, loaded with twists and turns that take you as far as Egypt, where Muggs recorded much of “Band of Gypsies” – teaming up with artists on oud, sitar, keyboard and guitar, as well as some of its street musicians. Its lead hook harks back to the glitchy shrieks of “How I Could Just Kill a Man” from their eponymous 1991 debut.

There are plenty of brilliant skits: “LSD” stars an elephant’s insistent trumpeting and a soft, dignified piano hook circa Goodie Mob, 1995, while “Holy Mountain” features a sitar, strange chimes and crackles of vinyl. The psychedelic “Reefer Man” appears to sample the vocals of June Kuramoto from American-Japanese jazz fusion band Hiroshima.

There’s still that element of menace that takes them back to the hood. “Pass the Knife” is a classic warning while “Locos” – thriving off the fluid interaction between B-Real’s nasal delivery and Sen Dog’s grittier bark – documents a raid on someone else’s territory: “Don’t even think about the strap up in your backpack/Cooperating when I leave you’re still alive, in fact/ I only want your cash crop, not your life jack’,” B-Real spits. “Warlord” recalls the theatrical, spooky sounds that dominated 1995’s Temples of Boom.

Cypress Hill are the hippies of the hip hop world, making music surrounded by a green-tinged haze that takes more cues from classic Sixties and Seventies rock than anywhere else. Elephants on Acid is one hell of a trip.