David Bowie's 22nd solo studio album, "hours ..." is also the thin white duke's first in nearly three years. Produced by Bowie and long-time accomplice, Reeves Gabrels, the album is a return to more traditional methods of recording.

Unlike most of Bowie's material this decade, "hours ..." contains a wealth of structured, hypnotic songs that are surprisingly accessible. Now that he's signed a new worldwide deal with Virgin Records, perhaps Bowie thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to give a new recording label something a little more conventional. "hours ..." is an album that will certainly appeal to those record-buyers who happen to own a "Greatest Hits" collection but not much more of Bowie's work.

"Thursday's Child," the lead single from the album, is haunting and melodic, with a run-down of the weekdays in the chorus, sparking comparisons to Bowie's mid-'60s mod pieces. "Something In The Air," with its electronically treated, slightly deranged vocals is erie and rhythmic, featuring some great sedate and sinuous Gabrels guitar work, and Bowie singing "I guess we've lived it out/ Something in the air/ We smiled to fast/ Then can't think of a thing to say."

"Seven" is a beautiful, reflective acoustic ballad with sensual slide guitar, and in "Survive" Bowie finds his cockney voice again, reminiscent of "The London Boys" from Bowie's '67 debut.

"What's Really Happening," one of the less inspiring tracks on the album, made music history by being the featured track in a web contest where thousands of songwriter wannabes submitted verse lyrics on-line to add to Bowie's already-written chorus. Winner Alex Grant (who receives a co-writer's credit), also provides back-ups on the wandering ballad.

The stomping glam rocker "Pretty Things Are Going To Hell" originally started out life as an instrumental track that Gabrels wrote for the game "Omikron: The Nomad Soul" late last year, but with the addition of a designer metal riff to the song attains a certain ambitious swagger: "The pretty things are going to hell/ They wore it out/ But they wore it well." A remixed version of the song is included on the soundtrack of the supernatural thriller "Stigmata."

Bowie's voice retains its smooth beauty, and while this album is less experimental then much of his previous work, the Beatles-esque harmonies and quietly soaring choruses are still charming and ironic. While Bowie has warned against seeing these songs as autobiographical, they largely concern a man of his age in bittersweet review of the passing years.

All in all, "hours ..." is a well-structured album, full of little reminiscences and disarmingly honest in its approach.