Given that he's now 70 years old and spends most of his time in a monastery, this is probably the last album we'll ever get from Leonard Cohen. It's also one of the strangest. For one thing, most of the music sounds as if it's being played on a particularly cheap synthesiser. For another, the old misery-guts can't really sing any more - and much of the time, he doesn't even try, simply reciting his doom-laden poetry against a gentle jazz backing. On other tracks he croaks like a Canadian Serge Gainsbourg, recalling his favourite erotic encounters with gloomy relish. So, it's a long way from Cohen's early classics - and yet, it's almost as fascinating, simply the man has a magnetic presence that even his lesser compositions sound utterly compelling. And, wonder of wonder, he's even managed to write a song about September 11 that isn't completely embarrassing. So, mean, moody and magnificent right to the end - did we really expect anything else?
