The Roots: Illadelph Halflife

Philadelphia's The Roots hit it big last year with Do You Want More!!!!, an album that, much like the Fugees' The Score, won loads of acclaim for its revolutionary use of—gasp!—live instruments. How good the album actually sounded seemed beside the point. On the 80-minute, 20-track Illadelph Halflife, the group returns to a more straight-up, traditional hip-hop sound, and the result is pretty much the same: another album that's not nearly as adventurous as it's made out to be by critics. Loads of guest artists—D'Angelo, Cassandra Wilson, Common Sense, Tony Toni Toné's Raphael, the ever-present Q-Tip, etc.—liven things up. And a few tracks, such as the piano-vamping first single "Clones" and the old-school human beatbox showdown " vs. the Scratch," leap out of the speakers. But in between, there are just too many stretches of the same old beats and laid-back jazz samples you hear on every other hip hop album. Rappers of the world, edit.