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(More customer reviews)2002's "Heathen" was the beacon on the mountain for Bowie fans who hoped the eloquent and moving minimalism of 1999's "Hours" was not just an aberration on the way to another noisily ambitious effort such as "Outside." Yet even for all "Heathen" did to suggest that Bowie had finally swept his Tin Machine under the rug for good, disonant techno freak-outs like "Took A Trip on a Gemini Spaceship" anticipated the tight rope Bowie walks on "Reality," a record so ambitious in production and sound as to be constantly on the verge of explosion. While "Hours" played like a dressed-up stepchild of "Hunky Dory," "Reality" picks up where "Scary Monsters" left off. As on that 80s masterpiece, each song on Reality approaches but never crosses the boundary between melody and mania. The result is a gorgeously successful restraint and maturity; the kind of reservation of his powers that moments of even his most lauded works have lacked. No song on "Reality" illustrates this more aptly than the stunning and ethereal "Days," one of the most moving productions of Bowie's career. Similarly tender and understated compositions like "Fall Dog Bombs The Moon" or the darkly seductive and jazzy "Bring Me The Disco King" balance nicely with noisier and farther-reaching explosions of melody so radiant as to light the world on fire: "New Killer Star" with its subtle nod to the doo-wop hit "I Will Follow Him," his cover of the Modern Lovers' under-ground punk hit "Pablo Picasso," the bright "Looking For Water." By the time the title track finally comes around, Bowie's vocals sound appropriately drained and the sound itself seems closest to driving off the deep end of the album's steel composure. But such meticulous production might have seemed inhuman without at least this one less-structured and overblown track. There simply had to be a pressure valve and the title tracks happens to be it; but there is hardly a song on here whose melodies are not infectious. When songs like these get stuck in your head, you hope they never leave.
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