"I'm nothing but my name, I'm nothing by my name" mutters Iggy Pop at the closing of 'American Valhalla'. Moreso than any other record, the Godfather Of Punk stands with his soul bare to the elements. A lot has been said about this potentially being his final album. If so, he truly dies by his own sword: with no pretence, and no bullshit. 

Teaming up with Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme and Dean Fertita, as well as Arctic Monkeys' Matt Helders, everything was in place for this to be a pretty monolithic slab of rock. What we get instead is a wild, invigorating ride into the deepest corners of Iggy's imagination. 

'Break Into Your Heart' simmers with a slow-burning a QOTSA-esque swagger, but with a Tom Waits brooding menace that gives Iggy's opulent poetry a statesmenlike grace - complete with his usual bite and edge. 'Gardenia' then comes flowing as an elegiac waltz and the esoteric, dark soundscapes of Iggy's work with the late, great David Bowie and much of The Thin White Duke's Berlin period. It howls as one of the best things that Homme and Iggy have produced in years.

'American Valhalla' is pure Homme desert rock, with its rumbling bass tones calling back to Era Vulgaris as Iggy takes a typically sideways glance at mortality: "I have no plans, I have no debts - but mine is not the carefree set...death is a bill that's hard to swallow."

'In The Lobby' is an understated and inverted little rocker, before 'Sunday' chugs along with that choppy and mechanical rhythm of The Strokes' recent output, while the sheer overbearing prowess of Iggy's drawl makes it his own - he is the alpha of rock and roll after all, but his undeniable presence throughout this record shows that he can still be the omega too.

Iggy's words do as much to paint a vivid picture of the desert landscape as the Morricone cinematic backing beneath on 'Vulture', before the skyward horror soundtrack of 'German Days' and the Nick Cave lounge lizard slowly boils over with some bittersweet wisdom from a man who's survived so much: "when your love of life is an empty beach, don't cry."

"Wild animals, they do never wonder why, just do what they God damn do," pine all members of the band in unison on the closer of 'Paraguay'. Amen, and fitting sentiments they are too. This is a record that needed to be made, however nothing is contrived. When you heard the make-up of this band, you could have applied any number of preconceived formulae to what you thought this may have sounded like, and all of them would have been wrong. This is far from QOTSA covering or featuring Iggy. What we've got instead is an entirely new beast, and a vessel for a rock icon to go through one more, perfect reinvention. 

"I couldn't take no more of whipping fools and keeping score," he grunts - and why should he? If this is the final bout of Iggy Pop, at least he can say "I did it my way."

See the full list of Post Pop Depression European tour dates below. For tickets and more information, visit here. 

APRIL

4 - Stockholm, Sweden - Cirkus
5 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Falconer
6 - Berlin, Germany - Tempodrom
8 - Hamburg, Germany - Mehr! Theater
10 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Heineken Music Hall
13 - London, UK - Royal Albert Hall
15 - Paris, France - Le Grand Rex