Part of the hoopla that surrounds the release of a new David Bowie album—which, up until 2013’s The Next Day hadn’t happened in 10 years— involves the initial frisson of anticipation, followed by the burning question: What can he possibly do next? As the undisputed granddaddy of postmodern, protean rock-and-roll, Bowie could well have retired a decade ago, as it was rumored he had, and rested solely on the laurels of Ziggy Stardust, Let’s Dance, Tin Machine and plenty more—his legacy firmly intact, his sphere of influence a constantly expanding universe (confer Björk, Trent Reznor, Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Dirty Projectors, et al.)

But that would be too easy. There’s an ingrained otherness to Bowie’s music that’s reflective of the genius behind it—curious, restless, provocative and ruthlessly of-the-moment. You never know when Bowie will come with something new but, when he does, you can be sure it’ll be something different, almost alien, and usually at the bleeding edges of where fashion, art, sex and the avant-garde forge an unholy but accessible alliance.

In a nutshell, that’s where Blackstar (iconized as ★) finds its footing. Who else opens an album with a 10-minute title track that captures the uneasy dream state of Moroccan trance music and, with just a subtle twist of the underlying melody, extends it into drum-and-space pop? With the repeating chorus of “I’m a blackstar,” the meaning is whatever you want it to be—and don’t look to director Johan Renck’s accompanying short film for answers; Bowie plays three different characters in it, including a cult leader type who wields a leather-bound book, Bible-like, with the ★ emblazoned on the cover.

With an ace band of jazz-funk fusion heads behind him, Bowie also has the luxury of working again with producer Tony Visconti, whose imprint on several classic slabs from the ‘70s, Young Americans in particular, shimmers into view on cuts like “‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore” (with an art-skronk sax solo by Donny McCaslin) and the stark, broodingly funky “Lazarus” (not to be confused with the Bowie-scored musical of the same name). Defying his age, Bowie’s voice is as elastic and expressive as ever—his performance on the ballad “Dollar Days” turns back the clock to 1969—but, as he did on The Next Day, he’s also grappling with his mortality (poignantly so, it turns out, on “I Can’t Give Everything Away”). Of course, death isn’t exactly a rare conceit in Bowie’s music; now into his 25th album, he’s defied the odds by reinventing himself yet again.