Music Review: Recovery - Eminem

Music reviews are something I've often considered, but ultimately shied away from. Unlike video games, music is really very subjective. Each and every one of our tastes are different - and who is a reviewer to say whether or not you'll like a particular album, track or artist?

The same could be argued for video games, of course, but in that case a technically flawed product is always technically flawed no matter which way you look at it. With music, discerning a rating is difficult. You don't get broken music. Unless you use your CDs as frisbees.

Music invokes emotions in ways that other formats can't. And music critics have it tough. All you have to do is look at the spread of reviews that Marshall Mathers' sixth album, Relapse, received on its Metacritic page. Some reviews scored Relapse with as much as eight points difference from one another.

The user reviews section just down the page is a different picture. It's filled with dissatisfied fans blasting the recent efforts of Mathers, criticising him as 'trying too hard', and 'less than average'.

Artist interaction with fans is something that doesn't happen enough. Oasis' stage presence - or total lack - epitomises the level of recognition fans have come to expect now. It's unusual then, that in a direct address to fans, an artist will admit their own faults. Mathers goes as far as accepting criticisms aimed in his direction in the lead single Not Afraid, confessing 'Let’s be honest, that last Relapse CD was eh/Perhaps I ran them accents into the ground'.

It's a statement which forms the general theme of the album, the subject appearing prominently once again in Talkin' 2 Myself (which features excellent vocals from Kobe), which documents Mathers' struggle in reclaiming his rap crown - 'Them last two albums didn't count/Encore I was on drugs, Relapse I was flushin' 'em out'.

Most impressive is they way that Mathers keeps his word and truly shows exactly why he was held in such high regard following his first albums. There are blips, such as the Relapse-esque So Bad which appears to have survived from the first cut of the album around a year ago, but as a whole the album reasserts Mathers' position as one of the greatest lyricists around.

Now returned is Eminem's uncanny ability to weave deep meaning into only short verses which have been missing from his music in recent times, and Recovery represents exactly that - it's a true return to form, and one that sees Mathers' status returned once again.