Leonard Cohen
Ten New Songs

THE REVIEW

A great opportunity perhaps not fully realized.

After nine long years since the last studio work, the solid and unyielding "The Future" from 1992, high expectations were placed on Leonard Cohen's return, the bard of the soul's hidden depths, the poet of pessimism and the deepest melancholy (which is precisely why it's more "genuine"), in other words... a sure bet.

After leaving his metropolitan existence and (vainly?) seeking spiritual peace in a Buddhist monastery away from any sign of civilization, any contact, and all "unhealthy" Western habits, our "sage" returns bringing with him ten new songs, as the album title disarmingly declares, also sounding "wonderfully zen".
Ten moments of embarrassing ambiguity and fluctuating beauty, divided between simple notes and chords like a stone thrown into a pond and more intense passages (though quite rare).
Interesting and as usual profound songs for their lyrics
("I saw you this morning./ You were moving so fast. /Can't seem to loosen my grip On the past /And I miss you so much/ There's no one in sight. And we're still making love"... he sings in "In my secret Life") that obviously cannot be divorced from the experience lived in such an "otherworldly" context as a Tibetan monastery.
In fact, it talks about mystical experiences ("By the rivers dark/ Where I could not see /Who was waiting there/Who was hunting me /And he cut my lip /And he cut my heart /So I could not drink /From the river dark" he sings in "By the river dark"), of enlightenment ("Don't really know who sent me/To raise my voice and say:/May the lights in The Land of Plenty /Shine on the truth some day" he sings in "The Land Of Plenty") and things that sound "different" in their continuous search for that Ultimate Truth above all things.

His voice then plunges into dark tones tinged with unhealthy darkness, delicately drawing us through its low vibrations "into his secret life", managing to convey that irresistible charm, always a true trademark of our American singer-songwriter.

The album moves smooth and phlegmatic between subtle and soft atmospheres, deep in sounds with just a hint of tension and a sense of satisfied relaxation that brings forth newfound feelings after the loss of perception and consciousness maintained in these absent years.

As I've already said, musically the album is quite sparse, if not simply embarrassing, but the key to this "new Cohen" is to be found elsewhere, in this sense of examining with "new eyes" a reality once only brushed, perhaps thanks to the great energy of the Buddhist experience accumulated and lived ("I fought against the bottle / But I had to do it drunk /Took my diamond to the pawnshop /But that don't make it junk /I know that I'm forgiven /But I don't know how I know/ I don't trust my inner feelings - Inner feelings come and go" he sings in "That Don't Make It Junk")  or the sense of the "divine" somehow always present (feel the cosmic "Here It Is" almost a hypnotic and circular mantra).

Of course, the scratch or moral force of certain past things is missing and here the 10 sweet ballads lag in terms of incisiveness or memorability, leaving us in certain passages with a bitter taste for the sense of suspension felt here and there.

Perhaps the moments are far when people like Nick Cave, Jeff Buckley, Bob Dylan, and even Lou Reed pointed to him as a reference point for their communicative poetry, telling of ended loves, wars, women, or simple faded watercolors of lazy souls seeking that certain something that gives dignity to existence.

Here, not even the splendid voice of Sharon Robinson (who co-wrote the music and much of the lyrics with Cohen) can return "that" Cohen we knew. Today's Cohen is irreparably tired (as the next album will confirm) and it's touching to hear him thank those who stood by him; someone like him, shy and perpetually withdrawn, seems almost timidly to want to "apologize" for returning to tell us something new... It is a withdrawn and certainly aged Cohen (or rather "matured"), who defines himself as "happy" for a regained quiet but who, to hopes and a desire to be challenged, prefers a "resigned disillusionment", a palliative morphine for that pain of living that only the greatest can channel into works of art.

A happy return but also a disappointment that makes us inexorably understand that things change and that the old glories don't come back: practically "the parabola of life".
For better or worse.