Indianapolis Star review

[jarkko]

This comes from Marie.

Cohen wallows in wisdom gained from misfortune


Leonard Cohen's second album of the new millennium, "Dear Heather," shows he's still the master of pain, regret and longing in song. --
***/****

November 7, 2004

LEONARD COHEN

"Dear Heather," Columbia Records. Reviewed by Randy Lewis, The Los Angeles Times.

At last, Canada's rock poet laureate crafts a party album destined to ingratiate him with today's feel-good youth generation. . . .

Just kidding.

At 70, the longtime champion of the romantically dispossessed isn't changing his stripes, and why should he?

Few do pain, regret and longing better than Cohen. And in his second album of the new millennium, he remains a master of the genre.

Cohen shares songwriting duties with heady company, Lord Byron at the top of that list. He gives Byron's "Go No More A-Roving" a '50s R&B-cum-smooth jazz musical setting in which to explore the toll that time can exact on the heart and spirit.

But more than reveling in hurt, which can have its cathartic effect, Cohen uses the album to examine the wisdom that can accompany misfortune, for those who desire to find it.

Using the words of fellow Canadian poet Frank Scott's "Villanelle for Our Time," Cohen points the way to transcendence: "From bitter searching of the heart/ Quickened with passion and with pain/ We rise to play a greater part. . . ."

The intimate recording also allows the listener to feel every sonorous breath and syllable that passes Cohen's lips, that deep, rich bass-baritone somehow managing to remain audible, even while dropping lower than Barry White's.