The Big Issue review- HEATHER BLOSSOMS

[margaret]

This weeks magazine, sold by and providing income, for homeless people has this as its album of the week. 4 stars out of possible 5

HEATHER BLOSSOMS
Leonard Cohen Dear Heather

It's hard to believe that it's actually 12 years since Leonard Cohen released his last great masterpiece, The Future. Listening to it recently with Cohen's ancient, raspy vocals urging "give me back the Berlin Wall, Give me Stalin and St Paul, I've seen the future, it is murder" it's a song that could have been released yesterday. But then the grocer of despair has always been one step ahead of his contemporaries. In a career that's seen him sell over 11 million albums since his debut in 1967, Cohen's stock has regularly plummeted and soared but like Johnny Cash in his later years, he's currently undergoing something of a renaissance. His poetic brilliance and apocalyptic sensiblilities fast earning him a whole new audience.

Nick Cave, Jeff Buckley, Bono and Rufus Wainwright are among those who've hailed his genius over the past decade and now at the age of 70 from a small cabin beside a Zen meditation hall high up in the mountains, comes his latest offering, "Dear Heather".

Starting with a song written by Lord Byron no less, this is a bruising, soulful and beguilingly beautiful ride. Cohen's vocals - a cross between Abraham and Barry White - are as vital as ever, powering dark meditations on love and death one moment and playful Gainsbourgesque odes to women the next. Because of suggests a return to the rakish charm of Death of a Lady's Man as Cohen croons: "Because of a few songs wherein I spoke of their mystery women have been exceptionally kind to my old age"

But just as you expect him to break into a Byronesque strut Cohen holds back, ready to confront his own insignificance and mortality. Employing a poetic economy that's something of a departure from the expansive palette he normally adopts, this is a pithy almost biblical miscellany of observations that's made all the more poignant by the beautifully contrasting background vocals of Anjani Thomas. Thankfully too he abandons the worst excesses of his toy- town synths, replacing them with cabaret surrealism, Jewish harps and piano. Like Bob Dylan's Time out of Mind, there's an other worldly, transcendental quality to most of the album, which could well go down as Cohen's last great contribution to music.

Matt Baker


Overall, a pretty positive review

margaret

[lizzytysh]

Is Matt unaware of Ten New Songs ~ or does he simply not consider it a "masterpiece"?

" . . . from a small cabin beside a Zen meditation hall high up in the mountains, comes his latest offering, 'Dear Heather' . . ." ~ who needs correcting? Matt or me?

Comments of which I 'approve' :

~ "Cohen holds back, ready to confront his own insignificance and mortality"

~ "pithy almost biblical miscellany of observations that's made all the more poignant by the beautifully contrasting background vocals of Anjani Thomas"

~ "cabaret surrealism, Jewish harps and piano"

~ "an other worldly, transcendental quality to most of the album"


Now ~ think again, Matt :

~ "which could well go down as Cohen's last great contribution to music."

[margaret]

Apparently Matt is a bit out of date with L C's whereabouts.

I think he is aware of Ten New Songs as he refers later in the text to excesses of toy town synths TNS doesn't hold the same appeal for him

[lizzytysh]

I believe you're right on that, Margaret. No idea why I didn't put that together .

My emphasis in his last-noted comment, of course, was on the word last and not on great. Great it is ~ no doubt, by any measure. A very satisfying album, yet still one of which I'm unable to get enough.

One of my co-workers, unaware of what I'm listening to, walked by and smiled, as I was singing [lightly] along with "The Faith."