There is a vivid, unnerving glimpse of the polarizing dynamo Eminem once was on “Framed,” one of the best songs on his new album, “Revival.”

It’s one of the murder fantasias that used to be his stock in trade. Over a sinuous, unsteady beat, he raps with alacrity and, one presumes, eyes bugged:

She’s unaware in no underwear, she’s completely bare

Turns around and screams, I remember distinctly

I said, “I’m here to do sink repairs.”

Chop her up, put her body parts

In front of Steven Avery’s trailer and leave ’em there

The song is both excellent and reprehensible, a reminder of how sui generis Eminem felt at the beginning of his career, and how poorly he has aged. Four years after his last album, Eminem, 45, has returned at a time when the anger of white men is at the center of the country’s political discourse, and when, in response, efforts to prioritize decency and justice are louder than they have been in decades.

In this climate, Eminem — always a flashpoint, often a pariah — feels familiar. But the Eminem of “Revival” is only slightly attuned to the current moment. Apart from some scathing commentary about President Trump, he is mostly interested in extending old narratives here — about his troubled relationships with his ex-wife and daughter, about imagining gruesome scenarios of sex and violence, about his own struggles to be something more than a wastoid.

“Revival” is probably the best of his recent albums, but like much of his post-peak output, it is a mix of the entrancing and the mystifying, full of impressive rapping that’s also disorienting. Consuming it in one sitting is triathlon-level exhausting. He’s so beholden to his own aesthetic, and so uninterested in how the rest of hip-hop actually sounds (apart from the lo-fi “Chloraseptic”), that his music verges on outsider art.