Relapse

iTunes Review

An Eminem album is always more than the sum of its grooves. It’s a psychotherapy playground where its confessor manipulates the intelligence until no one’s sure where the truth is hiding. He lashes out at the world, but he’s no stranger to self-loathing. Eminem’s sober, but he’s not happy about it. His first album in five years, Relapse brings the sound of a man pent-up in his own brain-frozen hell. Valium, Vicodin, Ambien, you name it, Eminem has words for it. “Déjà Vu” recounts his slide down the pharmaceutical trail, passed out in cars, admitted to hospitals for “pneumonia” while hiding drugs from his 11-year old daughter. Em’s old imagined nemeses — Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan — are pretty tired by comparison (the tune’s even called “Same Song and Dance”). “My Mom” offers “sympathy.” He figures his problems are either genetically inherited or learned from a mother he professes to still love. His ex-wife Kim seems to be in the clear, but then maybe she’s embedded deeper in Eminem’s private code. His mind may have been a blur over these years, but he remembers when necessary.