Leonard Cohen
"You Want It Darker"
(Columbia (ASTERISK)(ASTERISK)(ASTERISK){)
Leonard Cohen is 82 and apparently not in the best of health. David Remnick's recent profile in the New Yorker of the song-poet with the sepulchral voice includes numerous Bob Dylan quotes but mentions no specific ailments. However, Cohen is not up for leaving the house. "You Want It Darker," produced by his son Adam, his third album in four years, does little to dispute the notion that Cohen is standing at death's door.
That confrontation with mortality begins with the title track, in which he looks death square in the eye and talk-sings, "Hey baby, hey baby / I'm ready, my lord." And it continues throughout: "I'm leaving the table, I'm out of the game," he sings on "Leaving the Table," one of several songs informed by a lifelong love of country music. "I don't need a lover, so blow out the flame." There is one unspoken argument made throughout "You Want It Darker," however, to encourage fans that the maker of "Hallelujah" and "Chelsea Hotel" isn't quite ready to check out. And that is simply that it's hard to believe an artist completely prepared to depart would be capable of making music that is this vital and, in its own stubborn way, full of life.
_Dan DeLuca
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