Candy-coated comeback

Four years after his critically panned album “Encore” and a myriad of personal problems including the murder of his friend and D12 bandmate, Proof, and a stint in rehab for an addiction to sleeping meds, Em is back to work and poised to create the comeback album of his career. Pulling out all the stops, he enlists his friend and mentor Dr. Dre to executive produce all 20 tracks on the album.

And the album, for the most part, succeeds.

Eminem’s patented singsong, schoolyard taunting flow on songs such as “3 a.m.” and the first single “We Made You” are spot-on flawless, albeit the lyrical content is at times bizarre and off-putting. This juxtaposition is perhaps most evident and disturbing in the incestuous rape fantasy “Insane,” with lyrics like, “Marshall, I love you boy I care about your well-being / No dad, I said no I don’t need no help peeing.”

With a song repertoire that runs the thematic gamut of violently murdering his wife (then rationalizing said murder to his daughter in, ahem, baby talk) to date-raping a 15-year-old girl at a rave party, it’s virtually impossible for Slim Shady to top himself in shock value. Thus, songs like “Insane” and “My Mom” seem like played-out album fillers on “Relapse.”

But Dr. Dre’s crisp, base-heavy production (even on aforementioned filler tracks) will hold listeners in awe all summer long and only fuel the hype for his much-delayed follow-up album to 1999’s “2001.” If “2001” is the soundtrack to a ’64 low rider on a voyage to some planet in the future, complete with gangstas, blunts and 40-ouncers, then “Relapse” is a traveling dark carnival, complete with serial killers, horror-movie villains and pill-popping sociopaths. Both concepts work wonderfully for the purpose of their respective albums.

“Crack a Bottle” is a fun, dance-inducing track near the end of the album in which Dr. Dre and 50 Cent lend their vocals to what could be the party song of the summer, with significant air-time on Top 40 radio.

“Beautiful” is a pleasant departure from the nightmare carnival theme of “Relapse” and features an introspective Marshall Mathers contemplating his celebrity, depression, subsequent pill addiction and his place in an industry in which a 35-year-old man feels like a dinosaur in lyrics like, “I know some shit’s so hard to swallow / But I just can’t sit back and wallow in my own sorrow / But I know one fact / I’ll be one tough act to follow.”

At the end of “Relapse,” Eminem hints at the possibility of another completed album that could be released as a “Relapse” follow-up. It would have one tough act to follow.