Leonard Cohen: Ten New Songs

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * )

Here's a minor, heretical question: would anybody be interested in this Cohen album if it wasn't for the fact he hadn't done one in nine years? Were people really hanging out for this?

The reason I ask is in interviews and reviews written about Laughing Len and this austere, understated album, all attention focuses on what he's been doing lately (Zen meditation actually) rather than on the music.

So why does the album run well behind that story? Well, the simple music is written by co-producer Sharon Robinson (who shares the cover shot) and Cohen's lyrical contributions veer between the evocative and the mundane.

There's not a lot to talk about with an album so understated it almost evaporates and where Leonard gets by doing his customary speak-sing over Robinson's synth beddings and co-vocals.

No good then?

On first plays it melts together and sounds undistinguished, then on multiple repeats the small gems reveal themselves: the dreamy In My Secret Life, the hypnotic A Thousand Kisses Deep, references to "Boogie Street" from a man who clearly don't boogie like he used to, the Dylanesque post-boozy growl of That Don't Make It Junk ...

There is Christian and Jewish imagery, of course, and the standout is Love Itself, refined and elegantly eloquent in a Zen minimalist manner.

So there's much to prise out, and it's low pulse and low expectation music from a 67-year-old whose famous debut album of thirtysomething years ago has just gone gold.

There's some real interesting magazine stories about the monastic retreat though.

Label: Sony