The Eminem Show would be lost without Eminem's press clippings. He unsubtly rehashes his tabloid exploits over the past two years: the divorce from his wife, Kim; their custody battle over their daughter, Hallie; the lawsuits flung between himself and his mother, Debbie; the gun charge for pistol-whipping one of Kim's paramours; the congressional hearings held on his music; and his subsequent canonization by suburban rap fans, MTV, and rock critics. "I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley," he says on "Without Me," which sounds tired and mechanical in comparison to past hits like "Just Don't Give a Fuck" and "The Real Slim Shady." On "White America" he boasts how "It's like a fucking army marching in back of me," his voice hoarse and strained with swollen pride, "I go to TRL / Look how many hugs I get!"

Meanwhile, The Eminem Show lumbers along with drearily self-produced keyboard bleats that are more lead-footed than a DMX album. Let's face it: Eminem's albums have never been club "bangers" on a par with his mentor Dr. Dre's own efforts. The rapper's appeal stems from the often witty and harrowing exploration of his personal life, particularly his eccentric, estranged mother, his difficult childhood growing up in Michigan, and his disastrous long-term relationship with Kim. "I would never dis my momma just to get recognition," he rationalizes on "Cleanin out My Closet," "But just try to envision / Watching your momma popping prescription pills in the kitchen / Bitching that someone's always going through her purse and shit's missing / Going through public housing systems, victim of Munchausen's Syndrome." Eminem has jettisoned his array of vocal inflections, which once ranged from a hilarious nasal lisp to a boisterous, puffed-up bellow, in favor of angrily shouting out harangues. After five years and three albums, the 28-year-old rapper's matricide act is growing stale.

"If you could understand the way that I am," he pleads on "Say Goodbye Hollywood." "It's like the little boy in the bubble who never could adapt." But it's hard to sympathize with a wealthy entertainer who, as he says, slaps hoes "off bar stools" on "Superman," no matter how many songs he dedicates to Hallie. Little has changed in Eminem's world since 1998's Slim Shady EP, and The Eminem Show reflects an inability to escape his demons and evolve into the thought-provoking storyteller and satirist he someday could be. Eminem's culture of complaint continues, if only for the record sales it generates.

"Reggie, Jay-Z, Tupac and Biggie / Andre from Outkast, Jada [kiss], Kurupt, Nas, and then me / But in this industry I'm the cause of a lot of envy / So when I'm not put on this list the shit does not offend me," Eminem whines on "Till I Collapse," ridiculous considering few in the hip-hop community have publicly questioned his still-amazing rhyming abilities. Expect that to change with The Eminem Show, one of the most disappointing albums of the year. (Mosi Reeves)

Mary Timony
The Golden Dove (Matador)

Having lived out her prog rock phantasies for a decade now in Helium, the Spells, and as a solo artist, Mary Timony has become the good witch of the indie world, penning odes about ghosts, goblins, and goddesses that are so surrealistic they make Tori's stories of happy phantoms and cornflake girls sound downright commonplace. Listen close enough, though, and beneath Timony's medieval metaphors are slanted and enchanted narratives of ill-fated desire, feminist fury, and real-life relationships. Making sense of those arcane allegories often proved maddening, however, and her messages were sometimes too cloaked in cryptic wordplay to truly resonate.

On her devastatingly heartbreaking and extraordinary second solo album, thankfully, the renaissance woman is no longer hiding inside her faerie tales. She hasn't totally stopped speaking in Tolkien tongues on The Golden Dove, but until now it's been impossible to imagine her singing anything nearly as straightforward as "You showed me pictures of your exgirlfriend on the beach without her shirt on / And it made me sick and I didn't tell you it did." The result is her most unsettlingly pointed and poignant CD, a quasi-concept record about romantic loss and longing that's as emotionally engaging and revealing as anything you'll hear this year.

Though The Golden Dove was coproduced by Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, its hypnotic piano plinking and prog rock flourishes aren't all that dissimilar from Timony's past efforts. Fuller and more fully realized than her solo debut, 2000's Mountains, the dozen funeral-pop dirges and droning death marches are held together by the haunting vocals detailing the failed relationship that frames the album. "The only boy I ever loved turned into a golden dove and moved to California," she mourns on "Blood Tree," later asking, "How do you love a dead dove?" It's not the words that are so impossibly sad, though – it's the idea that, even in her own phantasy world, Timony can't imagine his return as even remotely possible. (Jimmy Draper) E.S.T.
Strange Place for Snow (Columbia)

Three minutes into the silence that follows the contemplative piece allegedly ending the Esbjörn Svensson Trio's latest CD, an electronic hum builds into a grinding squall that unfurls into nearly 10 minutes of experimental throbbing and ambient Eraserhead-like sounds. Although pianist Svensson, bassist Dan Berglund, and drummer Magnus Öström drop hints throughout Strange Place for Snow that something dark and industrial lurks beneath the placid surface of their piano trio melodies and grooves, this hidden track decisively shreds whatever easy assumptions solidified during the previous hour of listening to Keith Jarrett/Chick Corea influences.

Not that the 37-year-old Svensson's playing doesn't bear resemblances to that of his American forbears. His penchant for repeating melodic rhythmic motifs until the muse moves him to extend them into rippling, not-quite-untethered improvisations and for creating vast spaces and mysterious atmospherics has a certain '70s vibe. But rebellious, this-is-not-an-ECM-clone funkiness and Monkish angularity often creep into the trio's rhythms, and the heady use of extended techniques – electronic keyboard textures, piano string plucking, wa-wa and bowing effects on the acoustic double bass, cymbal slap shots with normally urbane brushes – dig welcome scratches into the sometimes soft-focus lens.