The chugging electric guitar riff (thanks to ex-Parts & Labor guitarist Noveller, who wrote much of the music on Free ) and drum thwack of “Loves Missing” pairs rhythmically with the Pop-penned tales of “clocks ticking.” It’s a handsome union, that taut clicking and the Ig’s tight warble (think Bowie’s “Valentine’s Day”). (One should add here that Leron Thomas wrote nearly half of Pop’s lyrics for Free, an odd move for Pop and an honor for the Houston-based jazzbo). But Pop’s quiet rant about life’s heavy emptiness is focused on “moving beyond national pride” and into something absurd, evil, and scabrous. The Lou Reed–written “We Are the People,” too, has a thespian’s roll to it, just Iggy, his piano, and Leron Thomas’ trumpet playing into the night, talking about lies and desperation. Pop’s famed, quavering vibrato and toned-talking “you’ve done it all” soliloquy gives the subtly melodic “Page” the feel of an actor at the end of his rope, or even a Sinatra going about his way. His voice now often has the chatty warble familiar to BBC Radio listeners of “Iggy Confidential.” This time, Pop’s focus finds itself on the hardened edge of a path he’s taken before: the searing spoken-word of 1999’s Avenue B, and the jazzier leanings of 2009’s Préliminaires and 2012’s Après. The freedom Pop seems to seek, and has finally found, is from an addictive past in New York City (he’s lived and thrived in Miami since 1995), the tentacles of the record industry, the psychic load that is relentless touring, and what he’s called “the problem of chronic insecurity that had dogged my life and career for too long.” A septuagenarian who, even after 2016’s raging Post Pop Depression, showed few signs of slowing despite that album and tour’s feel for goodbyes. The world’s forgotten boy with a heart full of napalm. But before we go any further, let me ask you: If Iggy Pop hasn’t been free this whole time, who the fuck has? Against a bank of silvery synths and a muted trumpet’s blare, the wiry, deep-voiced Pop sing-speaks that phrase until it becomes a stage whisper. That’s the first thing you hear from Iggy Pop on the new album.
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