A creepy piano, wet-shot drumming and rising ghostette lay the groundwork forMust Be The Ganja, a tale of paranoia and discombobulation brought on by…wait, what were we talking about again?

Old Times Sake is the obligatory Dre-dripping jam that’s got the right punch, but oddly serves as a weak link in the album - not quite as skippable as Crack a Bottle, but still a fairly dismissible song despite a tight little hook.

20 tracks into an album, any other artist would likely go out with a feeble skit, a shout-out, a funny little ditty. Marshall didn’t take that route. Underground, the final track on Relapse, is quite simply Eminem’s Illmatic. It’s far and away the most devastating and innovative rhyme Mathers has ever spit, and carries an entire album’s worth of power in its six minutes and eleven seconds.

While most other MCs talk about what they’re drankin’ and telling tired tales of blazing trees and sluggin’ 40s, Mathers is riding muted guitar tension with an unrivaled, venomous fervor, spitting lines like The f****n antichrist is back, Danny/ It’s Satan in black satin panties/ This is Amityville, calamity, goddamnit/ Insanity pills, fanny pack filled with Xannies/ Through every nook & cranny/ lookin for trannies… and so on. Twisted shit, and a hard knee to the groin of political correctness, but with a talent that’s impossible to deny.

By the way - let’s try to keep ourselves in check this time, folks. We’re not talking about the artistic value of Hitler’s paintings. Eminem’s a character, telling a story. Keep that in mind at all times, and nobody has to start picketing and passing blame.

Em’s gravity comes not only from his flow, but from the fact that underneath the twisted bastard whack-job superstar persona, he’s just a guy riding the tide. Tthe slowjam Beautiful is autobiographical, introspective, philosophical and hilarious all at once. The man’s soul shines clear through the music, and regardless of how often he says “fuck” or makes meat-suits out of every sacred cow in the book, that’s always going to give him an edge on the groove-hustlers.

The style Eminem experimented with on Encore has been polished, pimped and thrown into 5th gear, and the result? Well, you can check that Asher Roth bullshit at the door. The real Slim Shady has returned, and there’s no coming back from this Relapse.

CraveOnline's Rating: 8 out of 10