November 26, 2002 by A.S. Van Dorston

When most hip-hop artists were pretty underwhelming in a live context, The Roots were a breath of fresh air, blowing competition away with their stunning display of musicianship, all with acoustic instruments, a human beatbox, scratching but no sampling. Yet at a time when music was giddy with possibilities in electronica and fusing genres, The Roots were coming across as fairly conservative, their brooding third album, 1996’s Illadelph Halflife was even kind of a drag. On Phrenology The Roots set out to break all their self-imposed rules by attempting everything they never would have imagined doing a few years back — employing sampling, tackling hardcore punk, rock, soul, a prog epic and even pure pop. The result may not surpass their critical highwater mark, 1999’s Things Fall Apart, but it’s a welcome, bold direction.

“Sacrifice” features a seductive, lazy beat, and the even more alluring Nelly Furtado. “Break You Off” is also startlingly poppy with another mainstream guest star, Musiq. However, it’s Black Thought’s relentlessly demanding lyrics and emceeing that anchors even the most frivolous moments. “Thought @ Work” is his biggest showcase, where his urgent flow is backed by a funky track worthy of the Bomb Squad. The biggest departure is also the best track on the album, “The Seed (2.0),” featuring a Keith Richards-style rhythm guitar, and an exquisitely melodic Cody ChestnuTT, sounding like the rebirth of Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. “Water” is a three-part opus weighing in at 10:24. It starts out innocuously enough with handclaps and rapping, and halfway in gets freaky with ambient noise, a moog, theramin and guitar by no-wave/jazz legend James Blood Ulmer. The album uses two ordinary tracks, “Quills” and “Pussy Galore” to recover. The two hidden tracks are as good as anything on the album, with human beat box Rahzel pulling off the amazing feat of imitating techno on “Something To See.” Aside from a couple patience-testing indulgences (Amiri Baraka’s poetry slam on “Something in The Way Of Things”), The Roots have finally become not just a group you can admire, but one you can enjoy.