Eminem, “Recovery” (Aftermath/Interscope)
Eminem’s latest album is called “Recovery,” but a better title might have been “Resurrection.” On his seventh studio release, Eminem has finally returned to form, which is to say he’s obnoxious, misogynistic, violent and often hurtful, but through it all, rarely short of brilliant.
After his last album, 2009’s “Relapse,” many wondered whether rap’s most successful and perhaps most talented rapper would ever do anything to merit the tag “brilliant” again. “Relapse” was a painful listen, with Eminem trying to recapture his former glory after four years off battling drug addiction. For Eminem, that meant an album that consisted mostly of tired insults and violent imagery without any of the wit that once accompanied it, making it charmless, humorless and forgettable.
Even Eminem acknowledges as much on “Recovery,” taking potshots at an album he now calls “trash”; on “Not Afraid,” he says, “Let’s be honest that last Relapse CD was ehh/perhaps I ran them accents into the ground, relax/I ain’t goin’ back to that now.”
What Eminem goes back to are the best elements that made him such a groundbreaking rapper when he made his debut over a decade ago: sick but hilarious humor; clever, biting lyrics and great storytelling. There is also more of Marshall Mathers than we’ve ever seen before on “Recovery” — and that’s a good thing.
