anna fantasticalsation

‘If You Can See Me' is a menacing tour-de-force.

It was bad enough when you looked in the mirror, but now that mirror has a camera in it and it's following your every move, every narcissistic reflection. And it's a portal to a dimension of unspeakable horror, allowing you to participate in every form of human atrocity, while simultaneously opening the hatch to unwelcome hordes to visit a panoply of unpleasant woes upon you.

The time-signatures are maniacal and the track speeds remorselessly out of control, its main vocal seemingly in a constant spiralling cadence. It's the kind of stuff not seen since 'Saviour Machine.' It's classic Bowie.

'Heat' is numbingly unmelodic. Slow. Torpid. It's a Scott Walker caricature, like a bonus track for 'Tilt.' It's magnificent. There should be an entire album of material like this. But Bowie is impatient. It's never going to happen. The lyrics are impenetrable. It's a drone.

There are other nods to brutality and nastiness. 'Where does the Grass Grow?' is replete with images of bloodshed and mud. 'Valentine's Day' sadly does not allude to Bowie's famous New York concert of 1972 with the Spiders, but is an anthem for the White Supremacist assassin who enjoys a gun-massacre. It's all very pleasant fare.

The title track appears to be straight out of the medieval religious bigots' playbook. Priests and orgiastic violence spearhead in an opening salvo which makes 'Where Are We Now?' appear to belong to a different world, not the same album.

Which brings us to the easy-listening ballad 'You Feel So Lonely You Could Die.' It's delivered with bitterness and bile. You could be forgiven for thinking that this is an extraordinarily unpleasant album. It's actually very easy to become acquainted with, if long by LP standards. It certainly rewards with repeated listenings.

It has many great tunes and, at last, Gail Anne Dorsey gets an outing on some Bowie songs.