![OUT TO SEA: Iggy Pop's new album Free sees the rock icon contemplating his own mortality. OUT TO SEA: Iggy Pop's new album Free sees the rock icon contemplating his own mortality.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/E9srhG6YCw3ZDt9UDADP4R/48de3068-03e5-4736-a72b-5dfeca76de8b.jpg/r0_0_893_893_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
THE 2016 album Post Pop Depression marked a renaissance for Iggy Pop, providing the "Godfather of Punk" with his highest-charting album of his 50-year career when it peaked at No.5 on the UK charts.
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Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme proved arguably Pop greatest collaborator since David Bowie.
However, the success of Post Pop Depression and the heavy touring schedule left Pop drained. That led the 72-year-old to album No.18, Free.
Whereas Post Pop Depression channelled the art-rock and post-punk of Pop's late '70s prime, Free is a complete sonic shift towards an idiosyncratic mix of synth soundscapes and jazz.
Free is the Sunday morning hungover after a hedonistic night out - and Pop's endured more than most - or the last tired years of a man who's become alienated from the world around him.
The first half of the album is straightforward, particularly the thumping groove of Loves Missing, which proves the septuagenarian remains a master crooner.
Sonali sees Pop's dabbling in Thom Yorke-style experimental beats and jazz, before the plodding single James Bond fails to spark.
The second half takes a bleak turn as Pop, exhausted at the modern world, struggles his way through the downcast Page.
Then backed by a solitary piano and saxophone, Pop provides his sad reflection on Donald Trump's United States in the spoken-word track We Are The People.
![RAGING: Even at 72 Iggy Pop still possesses a punk heart, despite the jazz and electronic sounds of Free. Picture: Tameika Brumby RAGING: Even at 72 Iggy Pop still possesses a punk heart, despite the jazz and electronic sounds of Free. Picture: Tameika Brumby](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/E9srhG6YCw3ZDt9UDADP4R/ee4cf0a3-ffa1-4d27-9513-26afc43259be.jpg/r0_0_3744_2496_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"We are the people without a country, a voice or a mirror/ We are the crystal gaze returned through the density and immensity of a berserk nation." Then, later: "We are the people without sorrow who have moved beyond national pride and indifference to a parody of instinct."
Pop may have once boasted a lust for life, but Free's finale The Dawn sees the rock icon contemplating his morality.
"Waiting for the dawn again/ The darkness is like a challenge to all my schemes, orders and forced good nature/ To lay down is to just give up/ You got to do something."
Free isn't the rock god Iggy most fans crave, but James Osterberg Jr is still delivering something with meaning.