Eminem review, The Death Of Slim Shady was without ………

It sets the tone for an album that often feels like a bet to see how many Caitlyn Jenner jabs Mathers can cram into 65 minutes.

Eminem review, The Death Of Slim Shady Punching downwards, joylessly and without inspiration

The “Houdini” clip ends on a cataclysmic event yielding “some unholy hybrid” of the young, insolent Shady and Mathers’ older, paunchier self (he’s now 51).

But if this album was conceived to let Mathers have his cake and eat it – to indulge his earlier, purposefully offensive wordplay under the guise of struggling against the Shady persona within – the reality is the worst of both worlds.

Much of The Death Of Slim Shady resembles a Telegraph op-ed: the ham-fisted mashing of people’s buttons, the blethering about “the PC police” and “Gen Z” coming to get him.

Anything, it seems, to get a reaction. On “Habits”, Mathers spits that his critics are “mad because they can’t tame me” – but there’s nothing edgy about these creaky routines.