Heavily tattooed Italian-American Lawrence Muggerud made his name with a sound that, while accompanying Cypress Hill's own brand of West Coast gangsta rap, eschewed the smoothed-out sophistication of his fellow '90s LA hip hop producers.
Instead, Muggs echoed the late '80s New York rap he'd come up listening to, dirty beats and scratched loops allied to flint-hard drum snaps in an atmospheric, roomy sonic environment.
1997's 'Muggs Presents Soul Assassins Volume 1' honed the formula, but proved to be the final flowering of the DJ's signature style. By the time of Cypress Hill's third album, 'Temples Of Boom', elements of the dominant G-Funk slouch had crept into his bag of tricks, sequenced bass and synthesised keyboard lines replacing skewed decknology.
The effect was to create a sleeker yet more claustrophobic sound, one that kept the band at the forefront of rap's ever-changing guard but inevitably lost something of what had made them special.
And so to 'Soul Assassins II', arriving a few months after the Hill's foray into nu metal. A refinement of a refinement, this record is the sonic culmination of the two strands of Muggs' work so far. It's clean and crisp, dirty music for a digital era: very Now, very hip, and meticulously crafted, it stands up well alongside the likes of Swizz Beats and the Southern trackmasters who've cornered the market in state-of-the-art, commercially successful hip hop.
The guest rappers are devilishly well chosen, Cypress appearing on one track while the resurgent veteran Kool G Rap, Wu-Tang's Gza, Goodie Mob, Kurupt and Everlast all shine on their respective cuts. A clutch of newcomers, likely signees to the DJ's own imprint, also impress, particulary Buc Fifty, probably in part because he's been handed the best beats.
But the nagging doubt remains that Muggs still has more in him of vision and imagination, and that perhaps he's selling himself a little short by making tracks that pay as much heed to what's going on in the rest of the hip hop world.
It doesn't quite live up to the promise of 'Volume 1', and set beside the definitive producer-with-guest-rappers benchmark - Pete Rock's brilliant 1998 album 'Soul Survivor' - it falls well short.
A consistent, solid listen, and a fine enough record, 'Soul Assassins II' is still something of a missed opportunity.
