NEVER LET ME DOWN

It took some three years to Bowie to recover from the release of "Tonight". His first blunder of his long career. No excuse as for his debut album. But here we go for what Bowie himself considers as his weakest album.

Actually, the first couple of songs are not that bad. But what is more interesting are both video clips. "Day-In, Day-Out" will be even banned from several TV channels (of which the BBC). Just have a look on You Tube. It is true that the images are rather raw and violent.

The second song "Time Will Crawl" will also be released as a single, but won't really chart. Just as the title track which is slightly better though. It is often considered as homage to Lennon. It is true that it reflects the melancholy of some Lennon songs. But I guess that the fans were cooled down by the harsh reviews of the album and were a bit hesitant in grabbing anything that had to do with it.

To be honest, even a song as "Beat Of Your Drum" is way better than most of the stuff available on "Tonight". Good guitar work, somewhat in the style of Fripp during "Scary Monsters". The guest guitarist is no one else than Peter Frampton and I must say that he raised the quality of some songs quite dramatically.

The same attempt is done with ."Zeroes". Rather humoristic for a title as well, but fortunately David released an OK song.Heavy (too) drumming, hypnotic and (too) repetitive beat though.

David brings us back in the "Diamond Dogs" atmosphere during the intro of "Glass Spider". A recitation depicting some sort of end of the world atmosphere. The storyboard is deeply sci-fi oriented. Some baby spiders being dropped on earth by a "Glass Spider" and be left alone. Things get worse for them when they figure out that all water has gone, which probably means death for them. The whole song features a fantastic rhythm and again a great guitar work from Peter Frampton.

The first blunder of this album is "Shining Star", but it is already the seventh track, so when compared to "Tonight" we are almost safe.

IMO, the highlight of this album is "New York's In Love". It is a mix between "Scary Monster" (the track) and "Day-In, Day-Out". I can understand that David is trying to repeat some parts of this great album, but each attempt on "Never Let Me Down" is of course inferior but again, the level remains pretty decent throughout the album even if towards the end, this cloning affair is a bit embarrassing ("87 & Cry").

The closing number is also a solid rocking number, as most of the songs featured actually. "Bang Bang" is a cover from a song written by old friend Iggy (he co-wrote it with Ivan Kral from the Patti Smith group). It is one of the songs of this album which is a pleasant surprise for me. Must have been twenty years that I didn't listen to it.

IMHHO, "Never Let Me Down" is a good album. Way better than "Tonight". Three stars.