He’s done it again. Like a thief in the night, David Bowie snuck up on the internet early this morning and dropped the video to his new single, The Next Day, taken from his latest album of the same name, onto your favourite video streaming channels.

Filling the Hollywood-cameo shoes that Tilda Swinton wore in his last video, The Stars (Are Out Tonight), is Lady Dior Marion Cotillard, who plays a fallen woman (with some incredible eyeliner) to Gary Oldman’s seedy priest, while Bowie himself presides over the scene of disrepute looking a bit like a cabaret Jesus – minus the beard, mind.

Shot by Floria Sigismondi, the religious theme of the video translates in fashion terms as brilliantly Dolce & Gabbana-style lace, floral halos and gilded detail (that was in The Bible, right?), while its more literal references (squirting stigmata) might go to explain why it’s already been pulled from YouTube.

At the close of the video, the artist formerly known as Ziggy Stardust thanks his co-stars Marion and Gary, before thanking everyone, and disappearing. Could this add further weight to the ‘farewell’ rumours that have lingered around this latest album’s release, or is he simply goading us?

‘Bye bye Bowie’ talk aside, in a week so characterised by punk, the guerrilla appearance of a video with a hinted secret agenda and some NSFW visual effects goes a long way to remind us who was really one of the most controversial figures of the ‘70s, and perhaps, still is.

Watch it on Vevo now.