MOG

The Roots - Rising Down
(Def Jam, 2008)
8 out of 10

This band deals, as participant-observers, in turbulence. "The Pow Wow" opens the scene in 1994; we get a glimpse of a band conference call, discussing some shit that went down at a Geffen meeting, pre-major-debut, and quickly shit starts to go down at this meeting, at least one man screaming. Not a shocking consequence of a conversation featuring this sentence: "The Roots' product is not just the Roots' product anymore." At first the screaming fit seems inspired by an inability to grasp the reality of the situation. More likely, however, it is the result of grasping it all too well, and this realization is a vital bridge to understanding the darkly-obsessed act of Rising Down.

The focus of the Roots is now laser-like. At eight studio LPs, thousands of concerts, and roughly two decades of work, the Roots are a beast, a hardened object of consciousness, drums, controlled anger, and deep music love. In concert, the Roots are a party band of showmen and showstoppers, a necessary part of their quest; but on Rising Down, there is no lack of confrontation, no lack of attention to detail, and no present interest in not playing directly over the heads of those in the cheap seats. I've been a Roots fan for some time now, and I actually even had trouble feeling it. My entry point into this album ended up being listening to it very, very loud, over and over again.

Black Thought is the ringleader of the 12 MCs that appear here; he contributes one verse per song. To wrap up the first third of the record, he takes a solo: "@ 15," a notably exceptional high school freestyle straight from Thought's archives, and the follow-up "75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)," three minutes of constant, refrain-free fierceness from both Thought on the mic and ?uestlove on the kit. A comparison between "75 Bars" and 2004's "Boom!" — both sparse, old-school spit workouts, the latter a much more lighthearted affair — speaks very clearly as an example of the Roots' current razor-sharp embrace of darkness.

The rest of the record's circus of MCs, surprisingly, does not diminish the aforementioned focus; the focus appears to inspire them, in fact. Each vocalist brings their A-game. Both former Black Star members, Talib Kweli ("Lost Desire") and Mos Def ("Rising Down"), sound better than they have in years, and so does Common ("The Show"). The topics of the various characters include Earth-collapse, anti-patriotism, uncontrollable urges, family strife, being a criminal, not being a criminal (just black), and being entirely unapologetic. Yet it is not up to me but the poets to deliver the message, and they do so with enough vibrancy, grace and beat-interaction to completely engage.

The only aspect of the group that keeps them on that interesting brink between full-on conceptual success and utter pop failure is their almost total inability at this stage to create a captivating chorus hook. "I Will Not Apologize," an otherwise exceptional spin on a simmering, laid-back Fela Kuti sample, sounds too upfront in its refrain; "Rising Up," the otherwise exceptional triumphant closer, has a two-bar refrain from singer Chrisette Michelle that could be completely thrown out only to improve the song. Other songs' choruses are live-with-able and varying degrees of appropriate, but almost none of them are evidently necessary. (The marvelous synth-grind "I Can't Help It" and the obligatory party track "Get Busy" [yes, even this album has one] are the exceptions.) Luckily, the band's backing tracks and occasional instrumental interludes are absolutely necessary. So much good taste is on display that the problem becomes negligible.

In any case, what keeps me listening is the combination between the entirely exceptional musical creations behind each song and the thematic foregrounding that ties the LP, and both are as strong as (if not stronger than) ever. "Becoming Unwritten" introduces an effects-heavy, clipped beat that becomes more and more unnerving and built upon before Black Thought delivers three lines and then cuts abruptly at 36 seconds. Later, a fuller version called "Unwritten" begins with a sung chorus from Mercedes Martinez and a verse from Thought, yet the song cuts to silence twice, and the second time it ends the track, even still at only 1:22. Thought rhymes, at the end of both tracks, "The son won't face the father/ The gun won't erase the trauma/ Why you wastin' your time, son?"

Being "Unwritten" in both of these cases gestures to the possibility that though one soldiers on, one could get swallowed up into nothing, due to idleness, due to loss of control in yourself, due to loss of control around you. Here appears to be the theme of Rising Down. On a hidden track, we hear aftermath of the phone conference that opens the record, one voice venting justifications for why such an explosion of frustration might occur and why it would be prudent to watch for it. Then he stops. "Oh, shit," he says. "Somebody just hit the fuckin' rent-a-car." ?uestlove says, calmly, with a laugh: "Someone just crashed the car?" Flaws and all, the Roots keep writing their story and throwing parties.

-Spencer Owen