For a career spanning 15 years, an 11-track collection of hits may not reflect so intensive an endeavour by either the record company or the compiler, given the fact that they have released nine studio albums over the years. That said, there are no stragglers here, with every one of the featured songs reflecting every itch and scratch of that familiar Cypress style. Naturally, there will always be songs that stand out above the others, with the obvious pick falling upon the band’s perennial anthem, Insane In the Brain – still as big a floorfiller today as it was back in ’93. Just as gritty and moving, however is the darker How I Could Just Kill A Man, a staunch crowd favourite that was curiously released as a B-side back in ’91, but proved to be one of the crew’s biggest tunes.

The bi-lingual Latin Lingo extended Cypress Hill’s appeal among ethnic audiences so that by the time second album Black Sunday came out, it went straight to Number One. Not bad for a hiphop crew with a left-of-centre logic, an in-your-face attitude and a deeply soft spot for Mary Jane. Their broad musical vision was led to 2000’s Skull ‘n Bones’ rap-metal excursion, a record that endeared them to rock and alternative audiences in the process thanks to the prime cut Can’t Get The Best Of Me, which along with other top Cypress tracks like Hits From The Bong and I Wanna Get High has been left off this compilation in favour of a new remix of Latin Thugs! Now, let’s be having that second disc please!

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CD COURTESY OF EXOTIQUE

NEVERENDING WHITE LIGHTS

Act 1: Goodbye friends of heavenly bodies

The title of the album has a ‘charmed ones’ ring to it, while the sleeve gives the impression of a dark, somewhat surreal offering waiting to be discovered – fortunately, it turns out that Act 1 has a bit of both! Neverending White Lights is not a real group as such; it is more of a collective, led and conceived by Daniel Victor and featuring vocalists from some of Canada’s foremost bands, namely Our Lady Peace, Finger Eleven, 311, Shudder To Think, The Watchmen, Creeper Lagoon, Alexisonfire, The Black Maria The Velvet Teen, Age of Electric and Super Garage. The sixteen featured cuts, grouped into three sections, adhere to a clear and consistent ethereal essence that feeds every beat and note on the record.

Interestingly, the ambience on the larger part of this album is a world away from the genres that practically all of the guest vocalists, (with the exception of Shudder To Think’s Nathan Larson) are accustomed to. For the concept alone, not to mention the effort behind this transformation, Act 1 certainly deserves to be lauded, more so on songs like Angels & Saints, Return Our Lives and the fragile, broken version of New Order’s Age of Consent. The overall result could be described as an aural sculpture gilded with delicate vocals, lush cinematic layers and a fine post-rock sheen to boot; but perhaps it is easier to just mention that Radiohead’s Thom Yorke would really have fit right in there, and that the album should be filed alongside the works of Ivo Watts-Russell’s legendary This Mortal Coil! Enough said!

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CD COURTESY OF WWW.LIB66.TK