Bowie, man, you sound tired. I know, you're pretty old, but even the lighter moments on this album sound dragged from hungover bedcovers. It's adventurous, sure, lurching with new wave angles and skittered beats and retro-eno textures, but most of it just sounds so laboured, not least because Bowie is 66 goddamn years old and has spent most of those living like a rockstar. Plus, the impression of weariness sure is deepened by that beatdown of that closer, man.
Let's talk album theory for a second. The second most important song on an album is the last: it determiness the note it ends on, figuratively and literally both. It sets the tone that's left in your mouth, it's the song that's freshest in your memory when you finish hearing an album for the first time, barring a mythical instant-earworm somewhere along the way. You gotta pick that one! This is half of why Radiohead's best albums are so transcendental - dudes know how to end a motherfuckin album. Heat, though, is just a crusher of a song, just a dreary slab of misery. It's a bold move, but casts a pall over everything that came before, shading the crannies along the way.
You think Bowie's aware of his own mortality? Fuck yes he is. This is everything short of Johnny Cash pleading with god for more time. To his credit, Bowie seems to be more interested in baring his actual self than gilding his death mask, and if Bowie were to die tomorrow this would be a Basement On a Hill-level final statement, but I guess we couldn't help but hope for something that sounds more vital. The opener is a great, promising kick, and Dirty Boys has an appropriately filthy sax solo that gets the blood running, but then its a bit of a nightworn desert out there, with only the sprightly Dancing Out in Space as an oasis.
As I've said before, Bowie can't win. This time it's because he's winding down, and he can't be true to himself without taking you down with him. I love you Bowie, I just wish I could love your albums a bit more easily (great album cover though, by the way, goddamn brilliant) 3/5
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