Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 18/05/09
Label: Interscope Records

When early word emerged that the first proper Eminem album in five years would be tackling his drug problems head on, your heart probably didn't sink too much. Yes, drugs might be one of the most stupendously boring topics a pop star can tackle, but this is a man, after all, who managed to make that other dread topic - the horrors of fame - provocative, furious and fascinating, with incendiary masterpieces like "Stan" and "The Way I Am".

Sadly, "Relapse" never scales those peaks or even attempts them. Instead, it's a very long, very detailed account of what he's been up to for the last few years, which sounds much the same as for thousands of unemployed thirtysomething men in sink estates across the UK: eating, drinking, drugging and watching horror films. The one thing he doesn't seem to have got round to is working out any new sonic tricks or writing any of those fiendishly intricate, inventive and daring rhymes that once made him the clown prince of hip hop.

So while "Relapse" is a slightly more energised record than the listless "Encore" (despite a Dr Dre production that is, for the most part, tired and dated), it's hardly the comeback many hoped for. The single "We Made You" provided ample warning: a lacklustre retread of past bubblegum glories like "The Real Slim Shady" or "Without Me", its filthy-mouthed assault on various female celebrities (Amy Winehouse and Sarah Palin joining older punching bags like Jessica Simpson) sounded dutiful rather than gleeful.

Say what you like about Eminem's old equal opportunity offensiveness, but his misanthropy was often made funny by sheer lyrical verve. On "Relapse", however, the threats of rape, torture and murder on ugly songs like "Same Song And Dance" and "Underground" come wrapped in the blankest, dullest prose. It's like reading "American Psycho" as written by Andy McNab. As for a line like "Underground"'s "Faggoty faggoty faggoty / Raggedy Anne and Andy / No, raggedy Andy and Andy": what makes this offensive isn't the gay-bashing, but the cack-handed laziness.

There are moments where the old energy and intelligence make brief re-appearances for old time's sake. The gaudy horror homage "3AM" has a brilliant yelping vocal, while the "family hell" songs ("My Mom" and "Insane", which accuse his mother and stepfather of drugging and raping him, respectively) have a Jerry-Springer-on-acid gaudiness and ferocity. And "Deja Vu", in particular, is brilliant, a self-lacerating, self-aware dissection of the excuses and self-deceptions that make it possible to live life in a chemical blur, set to a moody, ominous beat.

But such moments are, sadly, the exception, and the fact that a "Relapse II" is planned for later this year now sounds as much like a threat as a promise.

    by Jaime Gill