Devil's Night (Shady/Interscope)

"It's so easy for me to make enemies, it's sickening," admits D12's executive producer Eminem on Devil's Night (Shady/Interscope), his follow-up work to last year's multimillion-selling controversy magnet, The Marshall Mathers LP.

Well, a little perspective is healthy. As a member of D12 - a group of six MCs from Detroit's hip hop underground - Eminem returns to familiar territory with (if even possible) a bigger chip on his shoulder. Celebrities like Fred Durst, Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and Jesse Jackson are typical targets in this one-man pity party. When he rattles them over the same skeletal beats provided by Dr. Dre, it becomes a major case of d?j? vu.

Dre produces four of the songs here and let's just say not one is a stretch. "Ain't Nuttin' But Music" is a thin hair away from Eminem's previous hit from Marshall Mathers, "The Way I Am," even its chorus is just as catchy. But the new group mind, including Denaun, Big Proof, Swift, Rondell Beene and Bizarre, helps pump up the theatre so when "Blow My Buzz" or "Purple Pills" winds you through a party or a night out at the bar, the assault of perspectives from each angle is fierce.

The music gets anted up so it's not all squiggly keys and sneaky beats. "Purple Pills" features a honking sax and a harmonica blues jam that's both Morphine and Beck. The adrenaline rush of "Fight Music" is built around a sledgehammer guitar riff straight from a Jimmy Page songbook. Even a sampled Curtis Mayfield gives "That's How ?" a backseat soul vibe.

The more literal-minded won't be pleased with the gleeful gore these six dirty their hands with. But as the wrath of Eminem goes, it's still depravity you can dance to. As he says, "that's how I got this whole nation to embrace me."

- Mark Guarino
VirginMega
June 20, 2001