It's an article of faith amongst music journalists that every David Bowie album must, surely, be the return to form everyone has hoped for over so many years. Two decades of misfiring pretension, glass spiders, Tin Machine, geriatric drum'n'bass, bad suits, worse films and startlingly few hits have, evidently, taught us nothing. Whenever the Thin White Dame swans back, expectations become absurdly high, a kind of masochistic reflex response. Nothing, it seems, satisfies our critical egos quite like being disappointed by Bowie.
Witness, then, the hype promoting studio album number 27, 'Heathen'. His best since since 1980's 'Scary Monsters And Super Creeps', they say. And look, the producer's his '70s sidekick Tony Visconti, so it must be good, right? The optimism is touching. The truth, meanwhile, is a little greyer. 'Heathen' is, if not Bowie's best since 'Scary Monsters', then certainly better than anything since '83's 'Let's Dance'. This isn't saying much, of course: one suspects anyone, with the possible exception of Dave Stewart, should have managed that given the money, personnel and residual talent available to Bowie over the past 20 years.
It's a relative return to form, then. Only lunatics would rank 'Heathen' alongside Bowie's '70s masterpieces. But for a 55-year-old who's spent such a surreally long time floundering, desperately searching for a) the zeitgeist and b) a tune, it's actually rather respectable. Visconti's involvement has plainly been useful, since 'Heathen' has a tasteful, pseudo-experimental sheen that's infinitely preferable to the screeching techno-rock naffness Bowie has so frequently inflicted upon himself of late.
But crucially, it's Bowie's own performance that's most engaging: far less self-conscious, acutely aware of his age and mortality, afraid of the world that awaits his infant daughter. There's a wistful air to the stand-out ballad 'Slip Away' and 'Slow Burn'; even if the latter, with Pete Townshend guesting on guitar, sounds as if it was genetically cloned out of leftovers from 'Heroes'. Some of his tunes aren't bad, either, though it's significant that none of them compare with a couple of cover versions. One, a crack at Neil Young's simmering 'I've Been Waiting For You' with Dave Grohl playing lead, is surprisingly decent. Another, 'Cactus', is a shocker, and only goes to prove that while Bowie may have listened to the Pixies a hell of a lot, he still hasn't a clue how to assimilate any of their deranged power.
It is, though, a rare lapse in dignity. 'Heathen' is the first Bowie album in years the first in your lifetime, perhaps to be anything but an embarrassment. But when, a long time ago, he made so many truly astounding records, is that really enough?
