Phrenology

According to my dictionary (that’s the OED, mind, not the new Hip-Hop one) ‘Phrenology’ is the study of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental faculties. It’s also the title of The Roots’ fourth album proper – the follow-up to 2001’s critically acclaimed Things Fall Apart – but any study of this CD as a supposed indication of the characters and mental faculties of the acclaimed South Philly scratch collective will only result in frustration.

They’re all over the hip-hop shop. Phrenology is a musical melting pot of diverse styles and influences that never quite stays in the same groove long enough for you to be able to properly pin it down. Featuring collaborations from everyone from Talib Kweli and Jill Scott to Nelly Furtado and Muqiq (who guest on current single ‘Break You Off’), and operating somewhere between love and lust, the streets and the suburbs, one moment they sound like the Beastie Boys at their bedroom-trashing angriest (on the unusually titled ‘!!!!!!!!’), the next like the blissed-out love children of Grandmaster Flash and A Tribe Called Quest.

As they rap on ‘Water’, “They say a record ain’t nothin’/If it’s not touchin’/Grippin’/Draw you in closer/Make you wanna listen to it.” Well, Phrenology certainly ain’t nothin’. It’s touching, gripping, draws you in closer and makes you wanna listen to it. Unfortunately, although musically inventive and innovative, it’s just a little too free-flowing and not quite cohesive enough to make it grow permanent roots in this listener’s CD player. Longterm fans undoubtedly won’t be disappointed, but personally I’m sticking with my Eminem records for a while longer.