Eminem has been older and theoretically wiser now for almost as long as he was Slim Shady – a rapper obsessed with outrage and doing unspeakable things to his ex-wife, Kim. It is worth remembering what a nasty piece of work this exquisitely talented rapper has been, as you contemplate Revival, his ninth album.

The cover finds Marshall Mathers literally face palming, the US stars and stripes superimposed over his despair. A number of tracks find Eminem raging at an even more deplorable moral vacuum than Slim Shady: the current US president. Following on from his pugilistic freestyle at the Bet awards in October, Eminem remains on the warpath. “You ain’t ruining our country, punk,” Mathers snarls. Revival takes a word previously sacred to another musical form – Americana – and transposes its religious connotations to the national discourse.

There is an enormous amount to chew over on these 19 tracks, much of it intriguing – Eminem’s roller-coastering self-esteem, plus emotive updates on Kim (Bad Husband) and his daughter Hailie (Castle, feat Skylar Grey) and, perhaps most shocking of all, Eminem’s take on the staccato sound of now, the “Migos flow” (Believe). But the headline news is Eminem’s political engagement. The apex of his patriotic horror is a track called Untouchable, which met with mixed reactions when it appeared online the other week. It finds Mathers on scathing form, tackling police brutality, institutional racism and his own white privilege. In career context, it and its anti-Trump companion piece, Like Home (feat Alicia Keys), are quite literally amazing. Who would have thought Slim Shady would one day rail against the lie of the so-called land of the free built by slaves, or explain that violence is frequently the only avenue left to desperate people, or – and you may want to lift your jaw back into position here – inveigh against military transphobia?

Play Video 4:29 Eminem lambasts Donald Trump in freestyle rap – video

There are issues with these issues, though. These songs’ undercarriages tend towards the string-laden, rock-leaning and bombastic, a problem that lies mainly with producer Alex Da Kid. Although not a political track, the Joan Jett-sampling Remind Me is a particular travesty; this one is Rick Rubin’s fault.

Other tracks here sound far more up-to-date and minimal. Chloraseptic (featuring the only guest rapper, New York’s Phresher) is raw and skeletal, its subject matter – Eminem going for the throat like medication – taut and blistering. Offended finds Eminem gargling mercury, doing what rappers always used to aspire to: cramming syllables of scintillating wordplay into a small space without stumbling.

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This new, woke ’Nem hasn’t exactly been doing his intersectionality homework either. His shit-talking to Trump comes laced with the usual misogyny. The body of Ivanka Trump ends up in the trunk of a car on Framed; elsewhere he’s “hittin’ on Melania”. On Heat, Eminem admits there is one thing he agrees with Trump on: “Why do you think they call it a snatch?” he sneers over a Rick Rubin beat.

Offended, meanwhile, lands firmly on the wrong side of #MeToo. “I’m still copping a feel like Bill Cosby at will,” Mathers rhymes. The context is a rhymed hip-hop simile – how other rappers are still “copying, Xeroxing” – but it’s probably still a bit early to canonise Mathers. Another setback is that Eminem’s political sentiments may have missed their moment, that “wokeness” may have moved on from stating the obvious. Even as you thrill to Mathers’s ire, you are waiting for him to tell you something you don’t already know.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Listen to Eminem’s Untouchable.

And yet so many of these tracks are filled with grownup remorse. As well as blistering verses about his own emotional past (“I’m sorry, Kim”), the Ed Sheeran-assisted River finds Eminem analysing a fraught romance that ends in an abortion. “This love triangle left us in a wreck tangled,” he snarls. Arose ends the album with an arresting track about Eminem’s near-death overdose.

There are just too many pop stars here (Pink, Beyoncé, Kehlani) wailing anodyne hooks over glutinous beats. Perhaps the biggest problem with Revival – as with many latterday Eminem records – is the struggle of an intelligent fortysomething artist to evolve while somehow remaining true to the demands of his sniggery core audience of alienated males, one he knows he shares with Trump. Listening to Eminem trying to square this circle, it’s just one face palm after another.