David Bowie: Low

THE NEW BOWIE album doesn't make much sense. While practically everybody else in rock is striving for cleaner and more accurately recorded sound, Bowie's Low has drums that thump nastily like cherry bombs exploding under tin cans, hazy vocals that slide in and out of the predominating beeps and crackles, guitars that seem to be blasting not out of the speakers but from the garage down the street, and synthesizers that sound as if they're a bit rusty and held together by twisted paper clips.