Iggy Pop has debuted a new band and a new album at the South by Southwest music conference with a brace of songs that he's framing as something of a farewell.
Pop rocks and shocks on Post Pop Depression, which he previewed at SXSW, evoking his 1977 peak achieved with David Bowie but enhanced by all he's gone through since.
In Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and Eagles of Death Metal, Pop has found a congenial songwriting partner and producer, the mature pupil who grasps both the power and subtlety of the master.
QOTSA's Dean Fertita and Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders skillfully complete the band.There are recurring shades of Bowie - credited by Pop with rescuing not only his post-Stooges career but his life - in various riffs and sonic details, but they are not empty homages.
Pop was there (Berlin) and did that (co-writing and recording his best albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life, with Bowie).
