With an odd arrangement of hip-hop, DJ Shadow attempts to promote the humble sounds of the drums accompanied by his deep vocal on his latest release Preemptive Strike.

However, Shadow falls short of proving his musical talents lie in the hip-hop genre. His tunes prove to be repetitive in rhythm and the melodies lack professionalism in structure.

Songwriter J. Davis truly needs to head back to the drawing board and attempt to create more diverse and interesting productions.

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Shadow’s recent rendition of Strike, the first song off the album, is one of the numerous examples of Shadow’s incompetent attempts to promote easy listening.

Although his message may be meaningful and well intended, to decipher his words (or lyrics, if you could call them so) is next to impossible. His vocals are spoken, not sung and his voice seems to be muffled by the melody of the music.

A vain attempt at producing a decent compact disc credited to DJ Shadow and his crew, yet this is an album that should have been left in the shadows.