On Oct. 5, Marshall Mathers, best known by his stage name, Eminem, released “Marshall Mathers LP 2.” After the two year hiatus since his previous album, “Recovery,” many fans have been patiently waiting for the release of this album.

“MMLP2” is technically not to be labeled as a sequel to the first “Marshall Mathers LP”. It is more like Eminem is touching base with an album he released 13 years ago. Recurring dark and personal accounts of his helpless childhood, resentment from his absent father and violence in his community complements with the witty wordplay and quick jabs at touchy subjects. These matters bring both of the “MMLP” albums together.

The LP starts off with “Bad Guy”, a sequel to Eminem’s hit single off of “MMLP,” “Stan”. Without listening intently to the lyrics, casual listeners may dismiss the intro song to be just another song Eminem brings the lyrics to life. But by the second or third play-through, some will realize that “Bad Guy” is portrayed through the eyes of Stan’s younger brother, Michael Mitchell:

“You left our family in shambles. You expect me to just get over him? Pretend he never existed. Maybe gone, but he’s not forgotten.”

Anger remains a dominant color, whether in self-lacerating spiels or snarling tirades against enemies both real and comically cartoonish. He cooks up a storm of invective in “Evil Twin” and samples The Zombies’ “Time of the Season” for the theatrically evil “Rhyme or Reason”.

In “Rap God”, Eminem checks off his list while he raps  at the speed of light. He fools hip-hop icons and gloats with humor and spite about his rise to deity: “Everybody wants the key and the secret to rap immortality like I have got. Well, to be truthful, the blueprint’s simply rage and youthful exuberance. Everybody loves to root for a nuisance. Hit the earth like an asteroid, did nothing but shoot for the moon since.”

The subtlety of the killer track is easily lost, if not looked at straight in the eye, but when a person does see it, he or she truly appreciates what Eminem does.

The king of verse perversity spits wit with fluidity throughout “MMLP2” in a return to the fearless, high-velocity wordplay of 1999’s “The Slim Shady LP”, 2002’s “The Eminem Show” and of course, the first Mathers outing.

A few features join in with mixed results. Rihanna, the Bonnie to his Clyde on the huge 2010 hit “Love the Way You Lie,” returns in a similarly poppish “The Monster,” and Kendrick Lamar surprises listeners with the highly anticipated team up in “Love Game.”

Nate Ruess of fun. adds vocals to “Headlights”, which addresses Eminem’s bumpy relationship with his mother, long the target of his bitterness and blame. Here he’s apologetic and eager to make amends. It’s an admirable confession, and it’s bound to make the toughest of listeners sob ever so slightly.

Eminem is at his best when he’s at his worst: immature, psychotic, incensed. Not the most attractive traits in a father, perhaps, but it works for pop music’s antihero poet.

Score: 8/10