Quite paradoxically, Leonard Cohen is an ageless performer. With a voice that has run from slight weariness to a decrepit husk, he has followed his own path creatively. He was a poet and novelist before he turned singer-songwriter, and his songs are peppered with literary motifs and turns of phrase.
Never one to stay easily categorized, he moved from chamber folk with fingerpicked guitar and swelling choirs (1971's Songs of Leonard Cohen and 1971's Songs of Love and Hate) to wall-of-sound bacchanalian excess (1977's Death of a Ladies Man with Phil Spector) to pulsing bewildering synth pop (1988's I'm your Man). Even at his weirdest and densest, he is a compelling performer, whether you revere or revile him.
That said, age has not been kind to Leonard. In 2005 his manager gutted his retirement fund, leaving him $150,000. Not petty cash, surely, but it was enough to spark Leonard Cohen into action after a few years in a Zen monastery and sporadic releases. He embarked on tours through 2008 to 2010 and now he's released Old Ideas.
Old Ideas is Cohen's first record since 2004's Dear Heather and continues in a vein similar to it and 2001's Ten New Songs: eclectic instrumentation, almost a compilation of every sound Cohen has toyed with through his career, anchored by an attending trio of woman singers and Leonard's dark and dour grumblings.
While varied, the songs on Old Ideas seem cast from the same, similar molds: blues, folk and gospel. "Darkness" has a light, blue funk to it, with its trebly bass and delicate guitar while Leonard lurches through lines like "I got the darkness baby / it was drinking from your cup."
"Banjo"—while it doesn't seem to feature an actual banjo part—concerns a banjo floating on the open sea, the scene painted in Cohen's bobbing voice and the nigh-angelic backup singers. These and other superficial touches permeate Old Ideas, a title too apt for its content.
Leonard Cohen's career seems founded on the principle of restraint: no overreaching, no tour de forces and no definitive magnum opuses. Old Ideas is not particularly flashy and moves at a contemplative pace. It's highly unlikely anyone but current fans or self-styled serious young'uns will find much to celebrate about Old Ideas beyond its mere existence. At age 77, Cohen has no more time for thrills. In many ways, Old Ideas could be his death album.
Which is not to say it is. There is no staring down Death yet, and barring an unforeseen complication, Leonard Cohen is still chugging, but he is looking further back than ahead. All his themes-love, devotion, betrayal, sex, religion-are on full display, but they're tempered by a sense of reflection.
On "Show Me The Place," he asks to be shown where, "[he's] forgotten" the place where, "the Word became a Man." He immerses himself in a lolling wave of piano and violin as he comments on the scene with serenity. Or later, on "Come Healing," when his attending angels sigh, "Come healing of the body / come healing of the mind" as they watch Christ leave His cross and extol blood to purify arteries.
The ruminant weight of these songs is sometimes burdensome, sometimes depressing, until you realize their source: the wizened and wiry human with a voice like dredging lead, bolstered by his choir and the coursing expanse of his memory, bringing this all to the front and proclaiming, I'm right here Death, let me tell you what I've been through.
