Stars: 3/5

As well as having a fraught release - it was first mooted in mid-2009 but record company issues held it up - the third album from dynamic hip-hop star and Big Day Out party-starter Lupe Fiasco is a little patchy. It lacks that jump-out-of-its-skin dynamism of his 2006 debut Food & Liquor.

Words I Never Said labours and Beautiful Lasers (2 Ways) is slow and sluggish instead of cutting edge and cool. However, while Lasers is no rebirth of cool, tracks like sweet and jaunty Till I Get There, the finger-clicking good P-funk of Coming Up, and single The Show Goes On shows what Fiasco is capable of.

- TimeOut