by Steve HueyDespite a heavy dose of Redman's eccentric humor, Dare Iz a Darkside often threatened to disappear in a haze of blunt smoke, so for his third album, he and producer Erick Sermon backed off the muddled sonics of Darkside and returned to the hard funk of his debut set. There isn't as blatant a P-Funk/Zapp influence on Muddy Waters; the beats are more indebted to the new New York hardcore movement, and the tracks themselves are sparer and more bass-driven. Lyrically, Redman is as strong as ever, and if his subject matter hasn't changed all that much, he's still coming up with clever metaphors and loose, elastic rhyme flows. He projects more energy than Method Man (who appears on "Do What Ya Feel"), but isn't quite at the madman level of Busta Rhymes. The numerous skits tend to drag the album's momentum down a little, but overall, Muddy Waters solidifies Redman's growing reputation as one of the most consistent rappers of the '90s -- even when the music is unspectacular, he manages to deliver the goods on the microphone.