Guess who's back, back again? Eminem's latest album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), has been released and is being met with mixed reviews by critics. In the US rapper's 12th album, his alter ego Slim Shady is killed off - the artwork shows Shady in a body bag, and in the music video for Tobey, Eminem takes a chainsaw to him. Clash called the album "a mixed bag" and described it as "at once an effective piece of fan service, while also being a record that disappoints".
"It doesn’t quite feel like an ending, but neither does it feel like a continuation," Robin Murray wrote. "A mixed, often muddled album, it features some of Eminem’s best rapping in a decade – those fast, skippy-yet-intricate flows will never fail to thrill – but his pen is often blunted." Ahead of the release, Eminem told fans this is a "conceptual album" and the songs should be listened to in order.
The 19 tracks include previously released singles Tobey and Houdini, as well as a sequel to his 1999 hit Guilty Conscience with Dr Dre. Billboard ranked the latter song as one of the best on the new album and said "it’s not the original, but is a worthy second coming". "At one point, Slim Shady puts Marshall on blast for creating him as an alter-ego to stir up controversy and essentially be a shield to say jarring things that he didn’t really have the courage to stand on," Michael Saponara wrote.
USA Today said the 51-year-old is a "lyrical pugilist throughout, except when he turns misty-eye.
