Music to Be Murdered By - Side B (Deluxe Edition)

Side B is a 16-track expansion that delivers familiar territory with some pops of Em at his sharpest.

Over the three-song run of "Alfred's Theme" (which jacks Charles Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette," best known as the theme music to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, to delirious effect), "Tone Deaf," and "Book of Rhymes" (which climaxes with a flurry of DJ Premier scratches), Slim Shady stuffs more rewind-worthy punchlines and flow variations than most rappers will deliver in a whole career. ... Other attempts feel more forced. ... More compelling are the two tracks produced by D.A. Got That Dope.

Side B is not a total miss though, nor even a miss at all. Once Mathers stumbles through this opening salvo and the awkward bits of “Tone Deaf”, the album settles into a comfortable space, and even becomes enjoyable.

The album gets off to an inauspicious start with “Black Magic,” a dreary murder ballad with the requisite Skylar Grey hook and the same tired splatter-movie shock lines. Things perk up with “Alfred’s Theme,” which nods to the album’s Hitchcockian premise by sampling “Funeral March of a Marionette” and making a painfully predictable play on the name “Hitchcock,” and from there on out, the record seesaws between rapid-fire dirty puns and show-offy rhyme displays.

Age has not withered the rapper’s astonishing level of technical skill. If you’ve heard most of what he says before, it’s still possible to be awestruck by the way he says it. ... The music is less interesting than on its predecessor.