David Bowie: Heathen

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * * )

Could the title be a reference to the fact that there aren't as many Bowie-believers as there once were?

Try as he might to make himself sound progressive throughout the 90s, he just ended up overdoing it (though we do reserve a forlorn appreciation of his 1995 industrial-rock set Outside), and he's not as popular as he once was, as organisers of Gisborne's millennium celebrations found to their cost.

But his first set of the 21st century may restore some faith among the lapsed.

It helps that he picks some cool covers - as he did back on 1973's Pin Ups - bringing that increasingly vampiric-voice of his to bear on the Pixies' Cactus, Neil Young's I've Been Waiting for You and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy's sci-fi goof-song I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship (recorded, apparently, because Bowie felt bad aboutpinching Ziggy's surname from the Texan cult hero 30 years ago).

It also helps that old 70s mucker Tony Visconti is back in the producer's chair, allowing this to gently echo Bowie's, er, golden years without making it a desperate exercise in self-parody.

While the Bowieophile could spend time picking the historical references, happily you tend to notice something else first - that, covers aside, there's a big beating heart and good tunes in most of his own songs.

That's whether they're being strummed Hunky Dory-ishly (Slip Away, Everyone Says Hi), drifting moodily from on high (5.15 The Angels Have Gone) or when Bowie is dancing the space-rock tango (Slow Burn, with Pete Townsend's guitar helping ignition).

Heathen might not be all his own work, but it sounds like it is. And it appears that Bowie still does Bowie very well.

Label: Columbia