Leonard Cohen falls into that rare category of superlative genius, perhaps only accompanied by Tom Waits (QRO album review). Like the latter, he has aged with grace; Old Ideas embodies this. Instead of tiredly reclining into his twilight, the 77-year-old Canadian musician/poet/novelist/monk embarked on a mammoth global tour and has now released his strongest album since I’m Your Man (1988). But what can you say about Mr. Cohen? The man is an enigma, and so is the humorously entitled album – his most overtly spiritual record to date. Yet, there is a newfound tenderness and sincerity, which until now he has been hidden beneath elusive poetics. Moreover, it is both his least bleak and acoustically focussed album in 30 years.
That being said, the big, often-midi-file-sounding band is still dominant and discernible from the opening notes. The introductory lines of "Going Home" depict an optimistic, albeit weary, old man, "Going home without my sorrow / Going home some time tomorrow / Going home to where it’s better than before." The banjo-plucked "Amen" nicely follows, granting a suitable destination for the opening song, a place where a love and death collide: "Tell me again when I’m seeing through the horror / Tell me that you want me then." "Show Me the Place", easily the album’s finest track, is an evocative hymn of spiritual suffering. Here, Cohen’s unfathomably deep voice recites over delicate piano the unforgettable lines, "Show me the place / Where the word became a man / Show me the place / Where the suffering began." "Darkness" somehow manages to add something new to the effete twelve-bar blues chord progression: chunky Spanish-guitar pull-offs, funky bass lines, and suggestively debauch lyrics such as, "I caught the darkness / Drinking from your cup."
Thus far, he manages to execute ‘the filth’ stylishly, but fails on the jazzy "Anyhow", a less impressive descendant of the "Tower of Song". Cohen immediately revives the album by heart-warmingly strapping on a guitar (entirely unaccompanied) on "Crazy to Love You". This is a wonderful homage to his beginnings as an acoustic singer-songwriter, scented strongly with the odours of "Chelsea Hotel #2". "Come Healing" revisits spiritual themes with overwhelming passion. The backing vocals here could not be better and nor could Cohen’s lyrics: "O troubled dust concealing / An undivided love / The heart beneath is teaching / To the broken heart above."
The final three tracks are a beautiful collage displaying Cohen’s flexibility as he switches genres. "Banjo" is another refiguring of the twelve-bar blues, given a folk, slide-guitar treatment; an original sense of melody is carved-out on the grandfatherly, sleepy ballad, "Lullaby"; the closing track, "Different Sides", delves into the atmospheric funk/dark electro, not dissimilar to "Everybody Knows" or "Waiting for the Miracle". Old Ideas could possibly be Cohen’s final offering, and certainly one of his best.
MP3 Stream: "Show Me the Place"
