Iggy Pop

Free

Loma Vista Recordings

After the release of Post Pop Depression in 2016, I didn't think there would be another album from Iggy Pop. Free however is a work of performance art. The titular track, also the first single, is a short jazz-like piece with Pop pondering over the top. "I wanna be free" is both a longing phrase and a swift change from his last sound. There is a definite melancholy running through from beginning to end. At times an almost Bowie-esque tone runs into the Beatnik throng come lounge room croon that is the 2nd single James Bond.

The horns on Dirty Sanchez raises the mariachi game, a sunset on the horizon of a dusty desert with funky punk lyric about the state of the world today. The emotion in Pop's wavering vocals on Page as he cries over humanity and places himself in the universe as we move so far away from where we used to be.

This is a cracking entry in a 59-year career.

Rachel Howdle