Leonard Cohen
Dear Heather

THE REVIEW

I admit I felt a bit puzzled at first listen. I was expecting a collection of great songs in the vein of Ten New Songs, but instead, I find myself holding an album that is more a mosaic of experimentation, notes, tributes, quotes, symbols, memories, and dedications than a collection of songs.
Poetry has always been the fundamental component of Cohen's entire discography, which he has always known how to blend well with his compositions and ballads. However, I believe that in this latest work Cohen has delved even deeper.

In fact, this perfect mix of poetry and music is frequently dissolved, as if Cohen is retracing his own compositional process. In this sense, "Villanelle For Our Time" is quite enlightening; it is surely a great composition born of musical experimentation, revealing the great musician's skills of the Canadian poet.
Experimentation is an essential element to understand this work, which is actually much more complex than what a casual listen might suggest, but it is certainly not the only one!
Cohen indeed delights us with old-fashioned songs like the wonderful "Nightingale" and "The Faith," where he returns to the most traditional and pure form of music, namely folk.

Dear Heather is a formidable album that gradually transfigures, becoming more and more indispensable, and the songs that ran along that line separating the ridiculous from the sublime take flight and venture into that same darkness, deeper than the suffering gripping the heart of the protagonist of "Tennessee Waltz," the classic country song by Pee Wee King with which Cohen wanted to symbolically close this album, while we are left with no choice but to surrender once more to the masterpiece.