David Bowie: hours

The Thin Gray Duke

A quick look at the cover of David Bowie's latest reveals a great deal. Amidst placid blues and whites, the lifeless body of a buzz-cut and goateed Bowie (looking almost as he did on the drum-and-bass-and-metal-guitars album Earthling) is being cradled Pieta-style in the arms of...David Bowie.

On hours..., a kinder, gentler, and longer-haired Thin White Duke bids adieu to the electronic aggression of Earthling and its predecessor, the industrial-tinged Outside. Leaving such stylings to younger, bigger-selling acolytes like Trent Reznor and Billy Corgan, Bowie retreats into his own fragile world. The pace is slow, the mood reflective, and the music quiet and melodic.

At first, this decision seems regrettable. Outside and Earthling were intense outings from a man who, if the output of his former peers is any indication, should have stopped being interesting about two decades ago, whereas "Thursday's Child," the first track on hours..., breezes in and out like so much muzak.

A couple of listens, though, reveal an artist with a surprising amount of tricks still up his sleeve. From the suddenly warped vocals and out-of-nowhere crescendos of "Something In The Air" to the unpredictable shifts of "New Angels of Promise" and "If I'm Dreaming My Life," Bowie delights with a still-fresh sense of melody and structure.

Though hours... lacks the hard edge of Bowie's recent work, it makes up for this with direct, almost confessional lyrics. The record's first words are "All of my life I've tried so hard/Doing my best with what I had/Nothing much happened all the same"—a startlingly painful admission from a Rock God. When he sings "I miss you" in "Survive," he's as awkwardly vulnerable as a sweater-wearing folkie at your local coffee shop's open mic night.

hours... has at least one flat-out mistake—"The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell," the album's only stab at hard rock, is saved from utter forgettability only by the unfortunate decision of a middle-aged white British man to use the word "dis." However, tracks like "The Dreamers," the transcendent, guitar-splashed album-closer, neatly compensate for such low points. He's no longer one of the young dudes, but hours... demonstrates yet again that David Bowie is far from committing rock 'n' roll suicide. (Virgin)

—Sean Collins

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