Chronic, cheeba, buddha, ganja, spliff – the list goes on. After Dr. Dre and Cypress Hill broke the bank rhyming about the demon weed, rappers began riding high on the pro-pot bandwagon. Putting a Mary Jane leaf on your album cover became a commercial necessity instead of an anti-establishment flip of the bird. So it's no surprise that Philadelphia's Goats downplay the radical politics displayed on their debut, The Tricks of the Shade, to fly the freak flag on No Goats, No Glory. Indeed, the Goats' sophomore effort opens with "Wake 'n' Bake" and "Philly Blunts" – each revolving around the joys of herb. And that's just the beginning. The Goats' MC Swayzak boasts about his "stupid-phat collection of bongs, bowls and pipes" in "Wake," and over 11 songs the endless reefer references grow tiring. The Goats get props, though, for varying the program, introducing a new drug into the hip-hop consciousness: nitrous oxide, better known as laughing gas. On "Wake," Swayzak hilariously calls out for his "nigger with the nitrous tent" so they "can whip it like Devo."

Occasional contradictions are expected from the group that thanked radical activist Noam Chomsky on Tricks without considering how ol' Noam might feel about their recording for the multinational media giant Sony. But there are mixed messages to burn on No Goats – more than usual considering the Goats' supposedly nonconformist stance. Despite the PC ranting against AmeriKKKan-style oppression on tracks like "Idiot Business," misogynistic bitch and homophobic punk slurs recur throughout. The n word appears everywhere as well, even though the skit "Butcher Countdown" disses other rap groups who use it: Here, a Casey Kasemtype radio personality describes a young girl from "Whitedale, Illinois" requesting her favorite song, " 'He's My Nigger' by the Niggers." Most perplexing are songs like "Rumblefish," "The Boom" and "Blind With Anger," which run on Natural Born Killers-style anti-logic. With lines like "you only need a gun if you can kill a politician or some Nazi Klan fuck" ("Mutiny"), these tracks serve as cautionary tales bemoaning street violence yet still trade on gangsta thrills.

Where the Goats don't falter is the music. While previously linked with alternative rap, the Goats' head-bobbing beats towered over that genre's decidedly unslamming groups. Despite occasional lapses into limp funk rock, the grooves on No Goats hit consistently, with live drums, keyboards, bass and guitar giving the mix a swinging thump. On "Lincoln Drive" keyboards and guitar vamp jazzily around each other with infectious results, while the athletic scratching and murky, bass-heavy rumble of "Mutiny" recall prime Eric B. and Rakim jams. With "Revolution '94," the Goats break totally away from rap's conventions, investigating racism and oppression through an ambient, beatless collage of eerie spoken-word snippets. That's when the Goats get truly revolutionary, demonstrating that there is life in hip-hop beyond gangsta MCs and tired P-Funk samples. (RS 696)

MATT DIEHL