Bowie's Comeback an 'Absolute Wonder'

David Bowie's latest album—marking his return after a decade—seems to be living up to the anticipation. Sure, it's not 1970s Bowie, but critics are loving the 66-year-old's The Next Day:

• It "may be the greatest comeback album ever," writes Andy Gill in a five-star Independent review. "It’s certainly rare to hear a comeback effort that not only reflects an artist’s own best work, but stands alongside it in terms of quality."

• In the Telegraph, which also gives the album five stars, Neil McCormick can't restrain himself: It's "an absolute wonder: urgent, sharp-edged, bold, beautiful, and baffling, an intellectually stimulating, emotionally charged, musically jagged, electric bolt through his own mythos and the mixed-up, celebrity-obsessed, war-torn world of the 21st century."
• If that weren't enough, The Next Day is "thought-provoking, strange, and filled with great songs," writes Alexis Petridis in the Guardian. Full of "inarguable tunes," the album's "success rests on simple pleasures"—though the lyrics are "so dense and allusive" you may wish you had Cliffs Notes.
• "It’s not Diamond Dogs or Young Americans or Low—get real, this isn’t the seventies," writes Chris Roberts at the Quietus. Still, "it’s not just good, it’s great."

(More David Bowie stories.)