BLACKSTAR

Finally listened to _*_ for the first time. It's a good latter day David Bowie album: Interesting and adventurous, dark and somehow pleasantly hopeful, but still very, very, very much a latter day Bowie album. I've seen reviews and such claiming it for jazz, but this is no more a jazz album than _Young Americans_ was a soul/funk album or _Station to Station_ was a disco album. If I were to compare it to another Bowie album the most obvious comparison is definitely _Station to Station_ if for no other reason than the layout is so similar. Seven songs, ten minute title track at the beginning, and a certain sonic reboot that is also somewhat like that album. But really it's not like _Station to Station_ at all. There is no "Golden Years" on here nor is there a "TVC15", though the song "Dollar Days" reminds me somewhat of "Word on a Wing." The last song "I Can't Give Everything Away" feels sort of like something mistakenly left off the Labyrinth soundtrack and I swear "Lazarus" (when heard to hear instead of watching the video) sounds quite a bit more like The Cure than I am comfortable admitting. Overall, I'd say four black stars on first listen for this, and it might grow on me more in time as I've barely scratched the surface of it, for it is very black! One thing that I do want to point out, however, is that though he was ill while making _*_ it is neither a work of sorrow and despair nor some sort of ascended triumph over death. _*_, like death itself, simply is and as an artistic vision, exploration, concept, it is excellent.