When Leonard Cohen retreated to a monastery to train as a Zen monk, his fans must have despaired of ever hearing any new material from the original pop mystic. Nine years after his last studio album, however, here it is - a new opus which, incredibly enough, can stand shoulder to shoulder with all but Cohen's best work. Recorded with the aid of soul singer Sharon Robinson, Ten New Songs is a series of hypnotic meditations whose sparse arrangements push the 67-year-old's deep, rumbling vocals well to the fore. The lyrics, meanwhile, are oblique enough to keep his disciples arguing over their meaning until well into the next decade. Just one gripe: why did a record as fascinating as this one have to have such a prosaic title?
