For the follow-up to their promising debut Tricks of the Shade, the Goats decided to toughen up both their image and sound.

Musically, the plan worked: the beats on this record easily surpass those on Shade, incorporating metal and funk seamlessly into a hard, funky swagger that rivals any beats in hip-hop.

Lyrically, however, the results are disastrous.

The album is bloated with some six or seven songs that seem calculated to cash in on the popularity of Dr.

Dre's The Chronic (which had been released a year before), complete with rhymes about gunplay, boasts of thuggish behavior, and endless references to smoking pot.

The one-dimensional lyrics don't even work as parodies of gangsta rap -- they are simply dull and monotonous.

The turnabout is especially unjustified coming from a group that had previously condemned such cheap gimmickry.

Their one artistic gamble, "Revolution 94," an eight-minute sound collage á la the Beatles' "Revolution #9," isn't clever -- it's interminable.

Only "Rumblefish" and "Times Running Up" retain the smart, quirky attitude of their debut.

For a perfect example of the hip-hop slide -- the notion that an artist's sophomore effort is vastly inferior to the debut -- start here.