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THE ROOTS Rising Down Def Jam ***

These are interesting times for hip-hop, and doubly so for game veterans The Roots. A high- profile switch to the Def Jam label led many to believe that their time had come, but the 2006 album Game Theory just didn't have the big-ticket reach to catapult them beyond a dedicated fanbase built up through relentless gigging. There's little wrong with album number eight. Rising Down has a couple of thumping, smart bangers (75 Bars, I Will Not Apologise) and plenty of righteous anger about what's going down in the US and the world at large. The Roots have even toned down the fussy muso frills and bows that threatened to sink them before, with ?uestlove's crisp, masterly drums now part of the fabric rather than the dominant style. Yet for all this (and an odd tooled-for-radio track called Birthday Girl) it's still hard to imagine The Roots replacing 50 Cent and Eminem as stadium- fillers. Our loss, I suppose. www.theroots.com  - JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: 75 Bars, I Will Not Apologise