Eminem - "Encore"(Shady/Aftermath, 2004) - * * * 1/2

For Eminem, every two steps forward mean another step back. The pattern, which has been evident in every album he's produced, continues with Encore. Were it not for a little album bloat this could have been one of the best rap albums to come out in years. But songs like "Puke" and "Just Lose It" detract from the flow, and the skits that fill the album's eighty-minute running time are as pointless as ever. In the end, Encore is a great curtain call, a chance for Eminem to showcase everything that has and hasn't worked on his past three albums. But it is far from being the album it should have been.

With Encore, Eminem has written some of his best material, and balanced the lyrical prowess by producing some of his most intense musical backdrops. "Like Toy Soldiers," on which he speaks about the need to end the violence associated with wars between rival rap crews, features a tense snare riff and light piano touches that grows into the ear-catching chorus that inventively samples eighties pop star Marika. This is the kind of track that shows what a good sample can do, and immediately became a personal favorite.

That track is immediately followed by "Mosh," Eminem's call-to-arms for voters to rise up against Bush and the war in Iraq. "Maybe we can reach Al Queda through my speech," he raps. "Let the president answer to high anarchy! Strap him with an AK-47, let him go fight his own war ... let him impress daddy that way, no more blood for oil." He ends the song with a reasonable question for both presidential candidates: "Mr. President ... Mr. Senator ... do you guys hear us?" Too bad the song wasn't leaked until after the election. Still, it is very effective, and it was a track that even showed my father that perhaps Eminem has a little more to say than his usual mysoginistic homophobic radio hits might suggest.

Of course Eminem isn't content to let us revel in his ability to surprise us artistically. He has to include songs like "Puke," which opens with the most disgusting audio of Mr. Mathers himself vomiting into a toilet. He later sings: "You don't know how sick you make me, you make me f---ing sick to my stomach, every time I think of you I puke." It's enough to make a listener beg him: "Em, you've spent four albums talking about how much you love and hate Kim, could it possibly be time to get over her?" After hearing him apologize in "Yellow Brick Road" for using the word n----r in a track he wrote in high school ("I singled out a whole race, and for that I apologize ... I was wrong," he says with honesty that is rare among his peers) it's like crashing back down to hear this awful filler material.

My faith in his ability to craft a song is revived midway through the album, however, when reaching "Mockingbird," his blunt and honest dedication to his daughter, in which he lays everything out on the line.

I remember back one year when daddy had no money
Mommy wrapped the Christmas presents up
And stuck 'em under the tree and said some of 'em were from me
'cause daddy couldn't buy 'em, I'll never forget that Christmas
I sat up the whole night crying
Cuz daddy felt like a bum, see daddy had a job
But his job was to keep the food on the table for you and mom
And at the time every house that we lived in
Either kept getting broke into and robbed
Or shot up on the block

When he can handle the balancing act between having great lyrics and creative beats, Eminem's a force to reckon with. It seems to be the curse of his genre, the idea that every track needs to be heard, that leads artists to release eighty-minute discs complete with extra tracks, paying no mind to producing a cohesive record. He clearly has the chance to cement his legacy as one of the greatest artists of his generation, if only he can find a way to trim the needless excess. Here's hoping album five reaches that level.