Critics are gushing over David Bowie's upcoming album.

His new record, titled The Next Day, has attracted comments like "it's as good as anything he's ever made", and "it is an absolute wonder".

The twenty-fourth studio album by the English musician was announced on his 66th birthday in January, and will be his first album of new material in a decade.

Music reviewer for The Guardian Alexis Petridis gave it 4/5 stars - saying it is filled with great songs, thought-provoking, and strange.

"Listening to The Next Day makes you hope it's not a one-off, that his return continues apace: no mean feat, given that listening to a new album by most of his peers makes you wish they'd stick to playing the greatest hits," said Petridis.

He said it is not the equal of Bowie's 70s work, "but then, the man himself might reasonably argue, what is?"

Andy Gill from The Independent gave the album 5/5, saying it may be the greatest comeback album ever.

Gill purred with satisfaction over the album, which he said benefited from being produced by Tony Visconti, who worked with Bowie since the 70s, saying there was a "sleek, muscular modernity" about the arrangements.

"Bold, beautiful, and baffling" is how Neil McCormick described the album for The Telegraph.

McCormick also gave it 5/5.

"It is 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," he said.

Bowie also released a video today for his new single The Stars (Are out Tonight).

It features him and actress Tilda Swinton as a happily married couple, whose world is disturbed and then re-arranged by the intrusion of a celebrity couple played by Andrej Pejic and Saskia De Brauw.

The video is, as one fan puts it, "compelling evidence...that Tilda & David are not the same person." The jury's still out on that one..

The album will be available in New Zealand on March 8.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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