Eminem: Encore

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating * *)

That Eminem's album will sell more in the next few weeks than most anything else released this year is a given. Even if the disingenuous efforts of one local music retailer to donate his profits on the album to organisations looking after "the victims that suffer from Eminem's world view" recognised the fact that the music industry needs tentpole albums like this to get folks back into record stores.

But you do wonder - listening to this only briefly entertaining effort - if they might be tempted to visit the shops twice, the second time to complain that it's not a patch on his previous. (And if the shop's given your cash to charity should you feel guilty about asking for a refund?).

Encore is certainly well named - much of it feels like thinly-disguised repeats of past glories or tracks that wouldn't have made the main event on Eminem's past albums, which seem to have peaked on The Marshall Mathers LP.

On his past three proper studio albums he has, of course, worked his way through a few tanks of vitriol towards the women who did him wrong (his mother, his ex-wife), various celebrities and anyone else who got in his way. That he does the same here isn't the surprise; it's the feeling that he's just going through the motions and sometimes pulling his punches.

As the grudges with various hip-hop figures - including Ja Rule, Benzino and Source Magazine - fester on in his lyrics, the more indulgent it gets. That's something he recognises on Toy Soldiers - one of the early highlights here based on the Martika 80s hit - which finds him pondering where all these feuds will end and whether he should rise above it.

After Toy Soldiers comes the anti-war single Mosh, which makes a virtue of its lumbering groove and its slow-burning lyrical momentum, even if you suspect it will end up as a US Marine marching-chant any day now.

The other illuminating track is Yellow Brick Road (not a duet with old mate Elton) which reprises the world of his biopic 8 Mile and some of the hungriness of the soundtrack hit Lose Yourself. It's the story of a white hip-hop teenager trying to negotiate the music's African-American cultural ties and failing amusingly, especially in the years when he and his white mates found themselves relieved of their Afro-centric hip-hop paraphernalia and Flavor Flav clocks down at the mall.

It also addresses one of Eminem's most recent controversies, an early tape where he told listeners "never date a black chick". He apologises for the racial slur and, on first listen, the sound of Eminem being contrite initially provides the album's most alarming moment.

If being Eminem used to mean never having to say you're sorry, now it means sounding like a man disillusioned with where his profile has got him. He refers to recent rap retiree Jay-Z a lot, maybe hinting that he too sees the aptly named Encore as an exit strategy. But the balance of the 20 tracks (minus the inevitable skits) suggest he's hardly going out on top.

As the titles of Puke (his predictable anti-ex-wife rant), Big Weenie and My First Single suggest, there are too many tracks where lyrical inspiration has been replaced by juvenile burping, farting, and swearing for punchlines. Also heading this into self-parody/comedy album territory is Rain Man, which has a go at anybody who springs to mind, including the late Christopher Reeve, Jessica Simpson and, of course, gay sports jocks.

Other than a few early tracks where it all kicks in, the backings of long time producer Dr Dre don't lift proceedings out of its rut either. It feels like a long tedious time between the gunshots which open and close the album, the effect of which has little or no shock value.Encore is no shoot-out. It's the sound of Eminem losing his aim and running out of bullets.

Label: Interscope