Rating: 3/5
Verdict: Focused, fiery, but unfortunately not so funny
First, a rare apology from Eminem. On Talkin' 2 Myself he lays down where he's at on his seventh album, and while he'd have you believe he's back to his best, he'd also like to say sorry.
"Them last two albums didn't count," he offers in his piercing, acerbic lilt. "Encore [from 2004], I was on drugs, Relapse, I was flushin' em out. I've come to make it up to you now ..."
The thing is, he was better when he was detoxing. Last year's Relapse - Eminem's first album in five years, during which time his best friend Proof was shot dead, and he suffered from addiction and depression problems - was a return to form with it's disdainful, cutting, and hilarious mood making it his best since The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000. But Recovery mostly lopes rather than bounces, and lacks the cheeky charm of old.
First track, Cold Wind Blows, is a constant tirade of words and graphic images that can not be repeated here. And it's not a matter of being prudish, it's just that we've heard it all before. Yes, while his vocal venom is more jarring than ever, it's got to the point where it all sounds a little silly.
In saying that, he's still a rapping whiz. For someone who comes across so caustic there's something soulful and hypnotic about the sonic sound of his rhymes.
A notable absence is long-time collaborator and mentor Dr Dre (who contributed the best beats on Relapse, with Bagpipes From Baghdad) who only turns up on So Bad, one of the funnier songs with pumping horns and lazy, yet staunch, beats.
The standout among the guests, which also include Pink and Lil Wayne, is Rihanna who sounds more like a southern country belle than a staunch soul sister on Love The Way You Lie.
But there are also some clumsily inserted song samples like Black Sabbath's Changes in Going Through Changes, where he laments being "trapped in this fame and caged in like a zoo", although Haddaway's What Is Love is a masterful additive in No Love.
Eminem is at his experimental best on the noisy racket of Won't Back Down (with a smooth and saucy chorus from Pink) where a chaotic barrage of spits, beats and mangled guitar riffs come together for a hard-hitting epic. With songs like that, and the distorted widdly widdly riffs of Cinderella Man, Slim Shady could even have a future in rock 'n' roll.
