Kottonmouth Kings - The Green Album
Suburban Noize Records (10/28/08)
Rapcore

Here’s the beauty of making music pretty much solely for stoners: anything is going to sound good to them as long as they’re stoned.

Sure, the Kottonmouth Kings have somehow managed to cultivate a 12-year career, and this is the group’s tenth album; the problem is that the band really hasn’t shown any growth or development over that timeframe.

This brand of folk-influenced hip-hop has been taken and twisted since the mid-’90s and turned into something beyond what Kottonmouth is capable of or interested in keeping up with (perhaps it’s the weed?).

So, what do you have with The Green Album? Basically, a bunch of dated material relying on the “oh, aren’t we so cool smoking pot”-heavy drug influence. Even when the group brings in collaborators for a much-needed shot of energy (Tech N9ne on “Sex Toy” and The Dirtball on “Green Grass”, to name a few), it’s not only too little too late, but pretty much completely uninspired.

Every track sounds like a knock-off of something better: the punk anthem “Super Hero” and “So Cal“ (Rancid); the mellower material like “Plant a Seed” or “Stand” (Everlast); hell, even the rocking songs (“Rock Like Us”) sounds like an Insane Clown Posse (circa-Great Malenko) offshoot, a comment sure to tick off Kottonmouth die-hards.

But it’s not entirely a waste. Prototypical Kottonmouth tracks like “Freeworld” (which really shines thanks to a guest spot by Brother J) and “Pack Your Bowls” are good for what they are.

You can’t take one thing away from Kottonmouth: the group was able set up shop in a niche, start up a fairly respectable indie label and make a run of it. Sadly, they’ve been cranking out the same album for about six years now, and while there’s a couple of updated ideas on here (the state of the world and global warming), musically the group seems incapable of updating the musical approach. At least they’re putting their money where their mouth is and are donating a portion of sales to environmental causes. We’ll give ‘em a gun for that, at least.

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