My Relapse Review
Ok, so here we are in mid 2009. The world has changed vastly since 2004, the last time we were given an Eminem album it was Encore, a disaster of a record minus 2 or 3 songs. People had written Eminem off. His discontent for hip-hop, the personal issues he was going through and everything else had manifested into an album of trash and ass with little substance and low musical quality.
Rightfully so though many of us grew up and stopped checking for his music, while others held hope. At the end of the day any core hip-hop lfan with any sort of reason knows what Eminem is capable of. But he hadn't been producing it (no pun) into his music minus a song here or there. His lyrics often were filled with gibberish or references to contents one had a hard time associating with Eminem dragged his rhymes along.
I cannot however fault his flow though during this time. If he had ascended any part of his skills to new heights it was his delivery and flow on the mic. It became Big Pun like, Pharoahe Monch like liquid that spread and ran with whatever instrumental was presented.
Ok. So here we are mid 2009 and through all the trails and tribulations of the last 5 years, Eminem has Relapse.'d. Not once but twice.
The first is now, leaked onto the internet in the last week or so. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands with a possibility of millions of downloads later and the verdict from the fans, general music listeners w/ some interest and ofcourse the haters?.. Well hopefully for the labels the response is, "nah we haven't heard it yet. We'll wait for May 19th to buy it"..
All jokes aside, it's not a bad album at all. Far beyond anything Encore could have possibly wanted to be and with a return to detailed lyrical wax. Eminem steps out the woods and back into your mind painting graphical pictures of acid-rap fueled horror core & left-field subjects of drug addiction, abuse, murder and one mans plight through it all.
Each song connects with one another via help of a few smart skits. Bar "Crack A Bottle" and "We Made You", this LP plays out like a book or movie being done through audio only. However like previously mentioned, it's Eminem's detailed lyrics that makes it work.
"Same Song & Dance" plays out like "97 Bonnie & Clyde", the sonic landscape from Dr. Dre providing a perfect mood setter for Eminem's twisted tale of his pill poppin' antics during various scenes with females. While "Stay Wide Awake", sounds like it could have blended well with the Slim Shady LP. Here Eminem writes descriptive tales of kidnap, sexual attacks and murder.
"Hello" sounds like it came from the Marshall Mathers LP vault. Em flows flawlessly over a string/clap heavy Dre instrumental. Later on Relapse, "Deja Vu" is an honest journey into Eminem's private life, his battles with addiction and with low dark guitar riffs with banging thumps backing it. Em's rhyme, delivered with a razor sharp flow makes "Deja Vu" as one of Eminem's best works.
"Beautiful" is another candidate for being one of Em's best work. Constructed of the back of the troubled life of Eminem, perhaps the finest instrumental back drop on Relapse gets Em's heart poured onto it. Finally "Underground" and "3AM" provide some of Em's best lyrical rhymes on the LP. Eminem goes tit for tat with his mom one last time on "My Mom", resulting in some funny rhyme moments.
Unfortunately Relapse does have it's own moments of Encore relapses. "Insane" has Em dwelling into incest, child abuse, murder over a repetitive beat which sounds like a Dr. Dre/50 Cent left over. While "We Made You" is the usual Eminem lead single wackness. "Crack A Bottle" seems like a half-assed forced collaboration between Em, Dre & 50 and "Must Of Been The Ganja" has it's moments of lyrical genius on the 2nd verse but overall it's a lackluster song.
"Old Time's Sake" has a catchy beat with pretty dope Dre verses, while Eminem uses the Rainman accent and lowers his lyrical quality purposely to have Dre outshine him. It's not a bad song but for a collaboration between these 2 it's not that great either. On "Medicine Ball" Em calls everyone out to hate him, taking more stabs at Christopher Reeves (he has on all his LP's so far!) and the music doesn't quite live up to the instrumentals potential for a song.
Overall it's a good album, not great just good. Solid performance by Eminem to keep his subject right through with the albums content. Magnificent deliveries and flows. Some lame songs mixed in with some of Em's greatest work. Em took the best parts of his previous lp's prior to this and made a dope 4/5 Relapse.
Relapse 2 coming soon. Goes back bumping Born Like This... waiting for Blackout 2.