Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom

Updated on Nov 17, 2023

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Released October 31, 1995 Length 55:54 Artist Cypress Hill Label Ruffhouse Records		Recorded 1994–1995 III Temples of Boom (1995) IV (1998) Release date 31 October 1995 Producers DJ Muggs, RZA

Genres Hip hop music, Gangsta rap, West Coast hip hop, Latin hip hop, Hardcore hip hop Similar Cypress Hill albums, Hip hop music albums

Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom is hip hop group Cypress Hill's third album, released in 1995. The album was certified Platinum by the RIAA.

Album information

With this album the band turned towards a more tranquil, sedate, slower, spooky sound with beats. The dark mood of this album reflects the strife within the band during this era, when member Sen Dog temporarily left the band to pursue other projects.

Wu-Tang Clan members RZA and U-God both make appearances on "Killa Hill Niggas". Also notable was track "No Rest for the Wicked", which ignited the feud between Cypress Hill and rapper Ice Cube, who they claimed stole material from the band. On many shows of the "Temples Of Boom" tour, the group would take time in between songs to talk about this feud and get the crowd to yell obscenities about Ice Cube.

Reception

Rolling Stone - 3.5 Stars - Good - "…half of III bumps with a new and improved Cypress Hill sound that marks producer Muggs' progress.… For all the rude immediacy of its rhymes, III is an album of many musical hues…Cypress Hill still wield an intoxicating power that's all their own…"

Q - 4 Stars - Excellent - "The production is sophisticated, incorporating Indian sitar and sloping, almost psychedelic bass grooves to create a vaguely threatening ambient hardcore."

Melody Maker - Bloody Essential - "…resonates with freakish cheese-wire paranoia…a gobsmacking paradox of expansive claustrophobia.… The funk patters like an erratic heartbeat, the voices are stretched to bursting with menace and loathing and mockery…"

Rap Pages - 7 (out of 10) - "B-Real spits out lyric after lyric lambasting critics, ex-homies and anyone else not down with his familia.… Some of the record might sound familiar, but, hey, that's the Cypress sound."

NME - 7 (out of 10) - "At its most powerful, tuneful, sarcastic and entertaining, it's sneering '90s hip-hop.… In the weeks of the OJ fall-out and the Nation Of Islam Million Man March, Cypress Hill have made the album which reflects US and, therefore, global paranoia with spookily apt timing."

Track listing

All tracks produced by DJ Muggs, except track 5 produced by RZA

Charts

Album - Billboard (North America)

Songs

1Spark Another Owl3:40
2Throw Your Set in the Air4:08
3Stoned Raiders2:54

References

Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom Wikipedia

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