La Coka Nostra

With Danny Boy at the Helm, Everlast, DJ Lethal, Ill Bill and Slaine set course, anchored in the stale waters of rap music, their mast bedecked with a jolly roger for the new millennium, which serves as their logo. They fashion themselves as a loose collective ― mercenaries that have banded together and are taking aim at such things as "24s, candy-coated paint jobs and dance routines." Together they are known as La Coka Nostra (LCN). Along the way they picked up some fellow buccaneers to help them mount their verbal assaults, namely Bun B, Snoop Dog, B-Real and Sen Dog. Although affiliated with the group, DJ Muggs is surprisingly absent from the production team on the 15 tracks that comprise A Brand You Can Trust. Keeping the title in mind, it makes sense that this album seems so directed; it's purposefully over-the-top and targeted towards disaffected teens and those in their early to mid-20s. If you're mad at the world, these guys want you to buy their records, go to their concerts and level people in the mosh pit. This album is not for those wishing to hear something in the same vein as House of Pain, nor is it for anyone who thought they might find something that sounded remotely like Cypress Hill. Perhaps it's entirely selfish but here's hoping that the more time these separate entities work together the more likely we will be hear something that sounds a little more familiar.