More Canadian reviews

[jarkko]

All these are from Parky!!!!

Section: Style Weekly: Entertainment
Byline: Patrick Langston
Outlet: The Ottawa Citizen
Photo: Robert Galbraith, The Canadian Press / The songs on Leonard Cohen's Dear Heather point one way, double back, then head down new paths.
Headline: The diversity of a ladies' man
Page: L4
Date: Saturday 30 October 2004
Source: The OttawaCitizen

Dear Heather *** 1/2

Leonard Cohen (Columbia)

Seventy last month, Leonard Cohen is as elusive, and accessible, as when we first heard his sad, monochromatic voice pondering the mystery of ladies and harbours almost 40 years ago.

Dear Heather is the Montreal native's first collection of new songs -- well, sort of new and sort of songs -- since 2001's memorably titled Ten New Songs.

Hypnotic like most Cohen albums, Dear Heather defies easy categorization, much as the woman in the title track, a repeated 21-word vignette of unfulfilled lust, remains forever beyond her admirer's reach: "Dear Heather Please walk by me again/ with a drink in your hand/ and your legs all white/ from the winter."

Delivered in an automaton fashion that belies the sexuality of the lyrics, the half-song, half-poem is like a film loop that always stops short of dramatic resolution.

And while initially frustrating because it goes nowhere, the cut is ultimately gratifying as the listener slides into Cohen's skin. Dear Heather becomes a lesson in not only surrendering Zen-like to the present (Cohen has practiced Buddhism for years) but in accepting our inability to sometimes do anything but observe what we hunger to possess. The inaccessible is suddenly rendered accessible.

Skip to Morning Glory and you're eavesdropping on an interior monologue as Cohen debates with himself whether the path he's on leads to transcendence. Mid-way through the track, the questioning becomes academic as Cohen's fretting is replaced by the angelic one-woman chorus of Anjani Thomas singing simply, "Oh, that morning glory," eternity -- or as big a slice as we're likely ever to get -- abruptly revealed in the everyday.

And so it goes over the course of Dear Heather's 13 tracks. Songs and spoken word pieces point one way, double back on themselves, abruptly head down a new path, leaving the unwary listener stranded in Cohen Land, where things are both more and less than what they seem.

And don't even think about trying to corral the album into a tidy summary of theme and genre. It doesn't sprawl -- has Cohen, austere and emotionally precise poet that he is, ever been guilty of sprawling in his dozen-odd albums? Well, maybe a little on 1977's Death of a Ladies' Man, but blame that on producer Phil Spector, who never met a silence he couldn't plug.

Dear Heather does, however, jump around. A splendid, soulful musical rendering of Lord Byron's Go No More A-Roving -- Cohen's rumbling baritone suggesting no regret that his tom-catting days are over -- opens the record. Strings and guitar accompany Cohen and Sharon Robinson, his producer and frequent duet and writing partner on The Letters, a sombre exercise in shifting perspectives on a long-dead relationship.

A twanging Jew's harp momentarily jars the contemplative 9/11 track On That Day. "What's that thing doing intruding in a song about such a monumental event?" you demand. Except that's the point: death levels all, making each of us a bit player in a village marching band.

A concert recording of the 1948 classic country tune Tennessee Waltz closes out the album (no stranger to the genre, Cohen played with a Montreal country band, the Buckskin Boys, in the mid '50s and leaned heavily on country for his 1984 release Various Positions). Drenched in steel guitar, Cohen's cover probably worked better live than on record.

Self-contained, these songs and the rest of Dear Heather never quite line up in the tidy queue we'd so dearly love to impose on existence. But Cohen sounds content with things as they are, so maybe there's something to his Buddhism.

**

Edmonton Journal today:

Artist: Leonard Cohen

Label: Sony

Rating: 3

Review: Will reviewers go to hell for refusing to fall all over Leonard Cohen's new album? Canada's crown prince of spoken-word songs and Zen retreats offers more of his signature monotone and meditations of the heart on Dear Heather. Imbued with horns, Cohen's hushed delivery and minimal percussion, his songs often feel like they should be played at the end of a New England cocktail party. Or in a film with a scene set at a New England cocktail party, like The Ice Storm. That's perhaps the real achievement of Dear Heather -- for all of its sonic sparseness, producers/vocalists Sharon Robinson and Anjani Thomas are able to turn Cohen's songs into warm, luscious and cinematic snapshots.

**

Vancouver Province Tue:

Though he's 70-years-old, a new Leonard Cohen record is still an occasion. The voice is pretty much shot but his writing is reminiscent of his early poetry, including the title song, which consists of a single stanza, constantly repeated: "Dear Heather/

Please walk by me again/

With a drink in your hand/

And your legs all white/

From the winter." It ain't much but he makes it work like no one else could. He's surrounded himself with women producing and singing harmonies on this project, sometimes well, others to terrible effect as on the otherwise gorgeous "Because Of." "The Faith" is a classic. Rating 3 1/2/5

- John P. McLaughlin

**

Vancouver Sun Tue (Canadian Press copy):

Rating 3 1/2

Leonard Cohen is letting his new album, Dear Heather, stand on its own merit.

Fans will have to read between his well-crafted lines to deduce who Heather is and what caused him to write such an unusual song about her.

But the dedications on the disc help to solve parts of this enigma.

The disc and several songs are dedicated to friends and mentors who have passed away, among them R&B singer and actor Carl Anderson, who died of leukemia earlier this year, writer A.M. Klein, and Jack McClelland, the well-known Canadian book publisher who gave Cohen his start and passed away in June.

Cohen has released more than a dozen records, two novels and countless poems since he started his career in the early 1960s. His life has been well documented by the media (especially while he was romancing actress Rebecca DeMornay).

But he's declined to do any press to discuss Dear Heather, turning down interview requests and telling a reporter friend of his that the record "speaks for itself."

The record is distinctively Cohen, with rich psalm-like poems. The music has been stripped of layers to a simple almost lullaby format, making it a dreamy and hypnotic experience.

His partner Anjani Thomas, who has been singing with Cohen since the mid-'80s, and longtime co-writer and producer Sharon Robinson share singing duties. Their soft, angelic vocals strike a captivating contrast to Cohen's distinctive gravelly baritone.

Like much of Cohen's music, this record is a showcase for his poetry, with attention to all his passions including politics, Zen meditation and, of course, relationships with women.

It opens with a soulful interpretation of a Lord Byron poem where Cohen promises to Go No More A-Roving "so late into the night."

He then moves into the moody Because Of, where the 70-year-old legend reflects on his own sex appeal. "Because of a few songs, wherein I spoke of their mystery, women have been exceptionally kind to my old age," he sings. "They say 'Look at me Leonard, Look at me one last time."'

The disappointing On That Day, Cohen's reflection on 9-11, comes across as a bit too obvious for the usually subtle artist.

Canadian Press

**

Winnipeg Sun Friday:

"Because of a few songs wherein I spoke of their mystery," theorizes Leonard Cohen, "women have been exceptionally kind to my old age." That investment continues to pay dividends on Cohen's alluring Dear Heather, his superior followup to 2001's comeback disc Ten New Songs. Produced with a trio of different female collaborators (including former backup vocalist Sharon Robinson and longtime engineer Leanne Ungar), these dozen new cuts find the 70-year-old vocalist in typically sombre form, ruminating on lost love and 9/11. The musical support for his grave, gravelly musings is markedly improved this time, though. Trading Ten New Songs' cheesey karaoke-bar synth-pop for understatedly pretty jazz, folk, blues and country arrangements, Cohen and a roster of living, breathing players invest these songs with a welcome earthiness, sincerity and depth. Smooth, seductive and soothing, Dear Heather should be enough to keep Cohen gratefully ensconced in the company of women well into his dotage.

**

Canadian Press Monday:

Section: none
Outlet: CP WIRE
Byline: BY ANGELA PACIENZA
Headline: Enigmatic Leonard Cohen quietly releases new album Dear Heather
Date: Monday 25 October 2004

TORONTO (CP) _ Leonard Cohen's newest work hits stores this week and the icon is letting the album, Dear Heather, stand on its own merit.

Fans will have to read between his well-crafted lines to deduce who Heather is and what caused him to write such an unusual song about her.

But the dedications on the disc help to solve parts of this enigmatic work.

The disc and several songs are dedicated to friends and mentors who have passed away, among them R&B singer and actor Carl Anderson, who died of leukemia earlier this year, writer A.M. Klein, and Jack McClelland, the well-known Canadian book publisher who gave Cohen his start and passed away in June.

Cohen has released more than a dozen records, two novels and countless poems since he started his career in the early 1960s. His life has been well documented by the media (especially while he was romancing actress Rebecca DeMornay).

But he's declined to do any press to discuss Dear Heather, turning down interview requests and telling a reporter friend of his that the record "speaks for itself."

"You also confessed that, years after your depression mysteriously lifted, you're enjoying life more than ever," wrote Brian Johnson recently in a Maclean's column about the reclusive singer. "To go on about that in a world ravaged by unspeakable misery just didn't sit well with you."

The record is distinctively Cohen, with rich psalm-like poems. The music has been stripped of layers to a simple almost lullaby format, making it a dreamy and hypnotic experience.

His partner Anjani Thomas, who has been singing with Cohen since the mid-'80s, and longtime co-writer and producer Sharon Robinson share singing duties. Their soft, angelic vocals strike a captivating contrast to Cohen's distinctive gravelly baritone.

Like much of Cohen's music, this record is a showcase for his poetry, with attention to all his passions including politics, Zen meditation and, of course, relationships with women.

It opens with a soulful interpretation of a Lord Byron poem where Cohen promises to Go No More A-Roving "so late into the night."

He then moves into the moody Because Of, where the 70-year-old legend reflects on his own sex appeal. "Because of a few songs, wherein I spoke of their mystery, women have been exceptionally kind to my old age," he says. "They say `Look at me Leonard, Look at me one last time."'

The Letters is a sultry duet with Robinson, who co-wrote the track. It suggests the story of a tug-of-war between reluctant lovers. Undertow features a beautiful sax solo performed by Cohen.

The disappointing On That Day, Cohen's reflection on 9-11, comes across as a bit too obvious for the usually subtle artist.

"Some people say/they hate us of old/our women unveiled/our slaves and our gold," he sings.

As well, the title track is difficult to digest with Cohen asking Heather to "please walk by me again/with a drink in your hand/And your legs all white/From the winter" over and over again in an awkward trance-like metre.

Based on a Quebec folk song, The Faith shows off Cohen's gospel choir side. The disc wraps with a powerful live recording of the country-western standard Tennessee Waltz.

**

More CP (actually Associated Press):

Leonard Cohen is an old man now, but the Montreal-born crooner once was cool.

Just being himself gave the world a new breed of ladies' man _ a mix of dark suits, an I-don't-give-a-damn smirk, and an esoteric gaze focused on something no one else could see.

Unfortunately, his albums have become spoken-word duds lost in industry blur, and the old man's songs don't have the poetic poignancy they once did.

The irony is that Cohen at 70 knows this better than anybody. He's a hip anachronism that's been around long enough to see the fads come and go, and his new album Dear Heather isn't another attempt to redefine cool.

Instead it reveals with the stark honesty of a love letter the reflections of a poet who reluctantly became a rock star long ago.

And in some ways, that honesty is the album's charm. Cohen, who changed identities with his 1988 release Death of a Ladies Man, is now an aging gentlemen longing for memories but settled in the life he made.

"Because of a few songs wherein I spoke of their mystery, women have been exceptionally kind to my old age," Cohen speaks in Because Of, his voice ravaged by cigarette smoke and no longer the majestic baritone it once was.

It seems Cohen doesn't want to be a rock star anymore. He's grown tired of couching his visions in song.

But he's still the wise man with unanswerable questions. Not even he knows what he'll be next. "From better searching of the heart," Cohen sings, his voice rising, "we will rise to play a greater part."

(Reviewed by Ryan Lenz, AP)

**

Montreal Gazette Thursday:

Rating 2 1/2 Could someone please introduce Leonard to some actual musicians so he can ditch the Tinker-toy, Casio sound? It's back, with minimal support from humans - and the bad news doesn't end there. Where his last, Ten New Songs, featured strong writing betrayed by poor execution, even the material here is hit and miss. If The Letters and There for You hint at the expected spark, for example, the title song and Because Of sound like Cohen having a laugh at the listener's expense. And what to make of his apparent decision to be an observer on his own album, letting backup vocalists and a computer do a lot of the work? We love him, always will - but for a Cohen album, this is lightweight.

BERNARD PERUSSE

**