It's a horrible and outrageous thought, but he was trying to get into the head of a psychopath.

Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, aka Slim Shady, appears in the CD booklet of his sixth album as a Jokeresque character, and the parallels are obvious.

Mathers is one messed-up puppy - it has been almost five years between albums because he was addicted to prescription medication - but as he says in "Beautiful," "I decided just to pick this pen up and try to make an attempt to vent." And vent he does, from serial killer fantasies and self-parody (he criticises himself for going on about his mother's failings) to childishly nasty raps about Britney, Lindsay and even the late Christopher Reeves. Relapse can be both shockingly puerile and brilliantly honest. Mathers is a killer wordsmith with a stunning flow, plenty of demons to keep the material coming and - sometimes to his detriment - no internal editor. ★★★★★

By Barry Divola