Zowie! Bowie! Heathen is David Bowie's sharpest album--and most interesting to gay audiences--in years.

Heathen * David Bowie * IS0/Columbia

David Bowie has always been an object of affection for lofty queer lads who fancy themselves sophisticated and "open-minded." Unlike Iggy Pop, whose brutish brand of rock and onstage cock-floppin' rendered him sleazily attainable in the minds of his male disciples, Bowie's '70s-era Ziggy Stardust gender-bending and the innate emotional vulnerability and displacement of his lyrics in an unforgivingly macho world made him iconic. And while his subsequent, stylishly fey punk-daddy posings made him less overtly gay-friendly, he nonetheless remained consistently compelling. Even when he squired supermodel Iman down the matrimonial aisle and into the baby delivery room, he seemed, in some small way, to belong to us--even though he has never directly courted the attention or ardor of his gay loyalists.

On Heathen the legendary artist walks a tightrope between asserting his continued rock relevance and revisiting the more introspective ground of his salad days. Reconnecting with producer-collaborator Tony Visconti for the first time in more than 20 years has undeniably revived Bowie's inner poet. They clearly have a natural rapport that seems to unlock a secret mental door for Bowie--it's been 10 years since he's woven prose as thoughtful as the words that fill Heathen.

And this time he's not even pretending to be light or charmingly philosophical. Rather, Bowie bathes in themes of isolation, depression, anxiety, and abandonment. The difference is that his age forces him to confront such concepts and ideas with the perspective of a man who's been wallowing for a lifetime, rather than discovering them and reacting to their newness. He's particularly effective on the elegantly arranged "Afraid," which delicately explores the pain of being ostracized for being different from the rest of society, while the cinematic, expansive "5:15 The Angels Have Gone" delves into the mind of a man who loses everything without warning.

All of this functions within musical contexts that range from ambient pop ("A Better Future") to ornery guitar rock ("Slow Burn"). There are guest appearances by Pete Townshend and Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl, while Moby and Air provide appropriately atmospheric mixes of several tracks. Also offered is the haunting "I Would Be Your Slave," which Bowie performed at the Tibet House benefit show at Carnegie Hall in New York earlier this year.

In all, Heathen adds up to more than simply Bowie's most commercially viable and creatively satisfying collection of songs in recent memory. It brings the artist back to an emotional point at which his gay audience can tangibly relate. The male-male pronouns aren't there, but as with Ziggy Stardust and the material that surrounded that era, there's an unspoken connection, an understanding that forged a bond that remains unbroken.

Flick is senior talent editor at Billboard.