The Roots' drummer ?uestlove told MTV "I'm working on [album] number 10 right now — I want to be the first rap artist to actually make a good 10th record, that's my goal." The album came out on April 29, so did they get it done?

The Roots are known best as hip hop's innovators in the use of live instrumentation. Their earliest records, Organix and the punctuation-encumbered Do You Want More?!!!??! were recognized (albeit by relatively few) for their smooth, jazzy sound.

Since then, the Roots' musical style has evolved to incorporate progressively more programmed drums and samples, a trend culminating in Rising Down. ?uestlove calls it "the synth record," and he isn't lying.

The album begins, after a pointless introduction, with the title track and features thumping bass and slow drums, with a smooth opening verse from Mos Def and a less smooth closing verse from Styles P.

The music is heavy and moody, and the verses follow suit, as Mos, Roots emcee Black Thought, and Styles set the tone for the album, rapping about political hypocrisies, racial double standards and inner city conditions in their respective hometowns. The track is a good introduction to the album's lyrical and musical content. "Get Busy" and "75 Bars" are both forgettable tracks, the former featuring inexplicable guest verses from Dice Raw and Peedi Peedi and the latter featuring Black Thought rapping, you guessed it, seventy-five uninterrupted bars.

There's an excellent drumline, and the Roots lay off the synthesizer that "Get Busy" overdosed and choked on, but Black Thought just doesn't manage to take it home. This is one of only two tracks on the whole album that Thought does solo, and he doesn't give us much to chew on here.

What follows is probably the album's best track, the electric guitar-layered "Criminal," a reflection on the conditions that necessitate crime in the inner city and the mentality of those who wear this burden.

Setting a trend, Black Thought is outshined by guest Saigon (pray that his album drops this year), who crushes the last verse. Black Thought, with the occasional almost laughably lame line like "it is what it is, cuz of what it was, I did what I did, cuz it does what it does," can't really hold a candle to Saigon, but his verse is obviously meaningful to him and his emotion overcomes the comparatively weak writing.

The darkly political nature of the album becomes very obvious very quickly. Other standout tracks include "I Will Not Apologize" and "I Can't Help It" which respectively discuss racial misconceptions and the pull of dangerous pleasures that tempt us all, and the latter shows that the heavy synthesizer CAN be made to work.

On the other hand, "Lost Desire" undermines guest Talib Kweli with an electronic bass-centered track that doesn't do much for a group of emcees that traditionally sound better on something smoother. "The Show" with Common suffers from the same problem. The drums sound great, but the unceasing hum of some synthesizer droning and buzzing does not.

Fans of the Roots' 1996 release, Things Fall Apart, will get some sonic relief from the electronic stuff that fills most of this album on "Rising Up," featuring DC's Wale.

The musical backdrop is lighter and more melodic than most of the album, and the breezy chorus sung by Chrisette Michele stands in stark contrast with the haunting hooks chanted on most of these songs. The title of the track and its lighter musical sound made this reviewer expect something uplifting, something that sticks out against the backdrop of inner city struggles that the rest of the album crafts. Well, nope.

The song is upbeat, but the line "we gettin' paper like John Travolta" in the hook should give you an idea of the depth of this one. It seems that the Roots missed an opportunity to voice an optimistic song that ignites some hope for solutions to the problems that have been so eloquently explored throughout the record.

At the end, there's no doubt what the purpose of this album was. It is no coincidence that the release date falls on the 16th anniversary of the LA riots following the acquittal of the LA policemen that brutally beat Rodney King.

Black Thought and the album's numerous guests narrate the struggle of those trapped in the inner city, and they do it over dark, brooding, electronic beats. The emceeing is good, but not great. Black Thought is a competent but unspectacular song-writer and rapper, and having so many guests risks the cohesion that is otherwise generated by such a thematically unified album.

The music, for the most part, works. It matches the aggressive style of the narration and keeps your head nodding, but perhaps there's something to be learned from the fact that the best song, "Criminal" is one of the few that forgoes heavy use of the synthesizer. So yes, it's a good 10th record but it could've been better.

3.5/5