Mostly recognized as a side project for
Cypress Hill's
B-Real and Bobo,
the Psycho Realm seems like a good idea: a lyrically focused hip-hop group featuring a trio of vocalists going off about harsh social issues over melancholy beats. The group's eponymous debut reflected these concepts effectively; unfortunately,
A Way Story never comes close to approaching a utopian execution of this idea. The beats are just way too sparse and simple to hold one's attention, and to make them worse, the sound quality is unbearably poor, on par with a home-produced four-track recording (which can perhaps be attributed to the fact that the group was dropped from their major label). Furthermore, the vocals courtesy of Duke,
Jacken, and
B-Real are sorely lacking any sort of aesthetically pleasing flow; if not for the lyric sheet, they would be indecipherable, sounding like murky mumbling. A positive note involves the tone of the music; it may not necessarily sound great, but it does possess a strong emotive feel to it, embodying feels of desperation. But that's about all this album has going for it. Not even the biggest
Cypress Hill fans should find much value here. ~ Jason Birchmeier