The Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop is back with his 17th solo studio album – in the large scheme of things it acts as the 22nd if you span his work to incorporate that of The Stooges along the way. It’s a big, brash statement from a man who has revelled and toyed with the likes of jazz, punk, blues and art-rock over the years, never quite finding a single solitary vein (no pun intended) which he has swum consistently along, this leading him to become quite the auteur within the creative field. Everyone knows Iggy for having some obscure leather-look torso, for making Keith Richards’ drug habit look like a 15 year-old tampering with his first go on marijuana and for his screaming punk-rock singles, ‘Lust For Life’ and ‘The Passenger'. However, his general popularity as a solo-musician has fluctuated, it has been through the highs of the late 70s and his Bowie-produced Berlin years through to the muck and mire of the late 90s and early 00s, so, whilst his years of tampering with shameful car insurance adverts are over, this could be his return to life.

When this project emerged midway through January, it took the music world by a storm. Iggy Pop, the esteemed king of punk was on the steps to re-emergence, this time bringing friends with him. Those strutting alongside him coated head-to-toe in black leather were Queens of the Stone Age, Josh Homme, and Dean Fertita along with Arctic Monkeys’ tub-thumper, Matt Helders. With a line-up that blends the best from contemporary British rock’n’roll with America’s current trophy holders for riffs, what could possibly go wrong? For a potential swan-song as Iggy recently stated in a Beats 1 interview, this has a lot to live up to.

Word comes that this collaboration was coined out of a succinctly worded text from Iggy to Homme, something that materialised as a Palm Desert meets Detroit sound. Blending the best from Iggy’s scrapbook poetry with Josh Homme’s desert infused time signatures and sleazy rock’n’roll. The album cuts in with the opener, ‘Break Into Your Heart’, seeing the blend of what’s to come from the first instance, the staple point Iggy croon beckons with it’s lustful, seductive:

“I’m gonna break into your heart
I’m gonna crawl under your skin
I’m gonna break into your heart
And follow, till I see where you begin”

Whilst Iggy abrasively wrestles on the surface, Homme and co work on the underbelly with haunting keys, much in the fashion of QOTSA’s latest stuff off …Like Clockwork – see ‘Kalopsia’. From here, Fertita and Helders find their rhythm, matching beat for beat ringing out notes and exaggerating what Iggy is playing with on the surface adding a desert tinge to the filth that Iggy is slipping into your ears.

‘Gardenia’ was the first single from the album and emerged on the cusp of Bowie’s death at the start of the year. From the off, it signified what could be one of the songs of 2016. Pop’s lyrics twist through loving romance and adoration, you get the sense that his croon has taken to a romantic format, all the while supported by Homme’s penchant for fantastic melody. The chorus looms bigger because of Homme’s support, adding to it what Pop would have potentially missed had he taken it on alone. The tenderness in this song is truly found between the big riffs, Pop shows his flaws and exposes himself in quite the I’m-not-worthy, tortured-romanticist fashion:

“Cheap purple baby-doll dress
A gardenia in your hair
Much taller and stronger than me
A forbidden dream, a dream, a dream”

Ultimately, the standpoint that so often takes Post-Pop Depression is the exact mix of what you’d expect a QOTSA-cum-Iggy Pop album to be. It sounds just like Iggy has added his voice to a Queens of the Stone Age song at times, nowhere is this more evident than in the likes of ‘American Valhalla’ with its desert-session style riffing and ‘German Days’ – a song that obscurely takes a chunk out of Them Crooked Vultures’ back pocket with its jarring time signatures and distorted guitar licks that scrape the skin off the side of your face as they ooze by. Is this a good thing? Well, if you like Queens of the Stone Age then yes, of course, however, if you’re a sure-fire Iggy Pop fan, then perhaps not. It is ultimately subjective. It's done well, there is no doubt about that – big riffs snake around Iggy’s warble leaving it to ominously resonate around in the likes of ‘American Valhalla’ – “I've nothing but my name.”

The occasional flaw to Post-Pop Depression is the lack of hook. Whereas all these bands in isolation can produce the masquerading hits that flicker around you like the embers of a fire, songs such as ‘In the Lobby’ show glimmers of promise before being extinguished within Pop’s inability to sufficiently maintain melody. This is where support is needed in his voice by any one of the three surrounding him, all capable of holding higher notes. ‘Vulture’ too, as a song seems slightly strange in the run of things; it plays as the token acoustic song and seems more like a hammered old man having a stab at some Western karaoke. The music around it is interesting however, Iggy’s vocal performance leaves a lot to be desired; it’s hard to determine whether this song is supposed to be tongue in cheek or whether it is to be taken with sincerity.

‘Sunday’ however makes up for these mistakes and could arguably be the best on the album. It was launched the other day as additional promotion for the album, cramming in it’s tribal rhythms and Led Zep style guitars, the centrefold to the album packs everything in it needs to in order to utilise all six minutes. It never once gets boring with Iggy’s baritone becoming stronger still due to all the supporting vocals ringing out around it. A Disco groove is wrenched out of the grasp of the 70s leaving Boney M crying somewhere in the distance as it’s toyed with and given some sort of distorted facelift. It all leads to a desert-disco-rock ending, with orchestral sounds that could have shown Ennio Morricone a thing or two.

When people throwback to the AM era Arctic Monkey’s days, one of the stand out features was the exquisite backing-vocal performance from Matt Helders, taking Turner blow for blow in delivery, supporting him at all times. Here, in ‘Chocolate Drops’ he does the same thing, taking Iggy’s voice through a 70s time warp, exaggerating the groove and melodic bounce of the song. It’s really quite a masterful song demonstrating the level of musicianship that each character in this band has; Homme’s guitar is as seductive and sleazy as ever, stringing you in without any release. Everything is so effortlessly tasteful.

This is something that is further transposed onto the album closer, ‘Paraguay’, a great ending to an album that has taken everything from Iggy’s musical soul to produce. He croons at the start:

“I’m going where sore losers go
To hide my face and spend my dough
Though it’s a dream it’s not a lie
And I won’t stop to say goodbye”

This sense of ambivalence and goodbye can come across cliched if not executed with perfection, however, Iggy really does it, he really nails it. He turns on the screw further as he utters: “I just thought, well, fuck it man / I'm gonna pack my soul and scram” – Homme, Helders and Fertita pound through providing backing vocals, singing in unison, “wild animals they do, never wonder why, just to do what they God damn do”, well it seems this is what they got to do, them wild rock’n’roll animals. In fact, the entirety of ‘Paraguay’ is Iggy Pop’s lamenting of you and why he now needs to leave. It is the greatest punk-rock part of the album and Iggy shines with his most glorious, scornful lyricism. He’s gone, and this is his goodbye, elegantly erratic and chaotic.

For a swan-song album, has he purely relied on someone else to sign on his absence note or is this an overly cynical standpoint? Lyricism has always been Iggy’s strongest attribute, wrapping poetry in some tortured, disgusting veil and that is most certainly present. I guess it depends what angle you take on it. Personally I feel what it comes down to is Iggy’s assurance that he’s going to go out with a bang, I feel there is a tinge of modesty and acceptance of his position which he has taken. Had this been him on his own, it may have flickered and then dimly switched off – however using rock’s heavyweights to bring the curtain crashing down, he has assured listeners that this is a) the end and b) the best ending it could possibly have been. It acts as a standpoint that shows what he has created and influenced whilst simultaneously what he can still produce. This is a stellar album bar the odd track here and there but the likes of ‘Gardenia’, ‘Sunday’ and ‘Paraguay’ are going to cement this is a fantastic piece of music, full of anger, passion and lust:- sex, death and punk, just as Iggy has always taught us.
Tom Churchill

Website: iggypop.com
Facebook: facebook.com/iggypop
Twitter: twitter.com/IggyPop