At 77 years-old with his 12th studio album in a career spanning over forty years, there’s more to the legendary Leonard Cohen than ‘Hallelujah’ and its seemingly endless melodramatic covers.
Yet Old Ideas, as the title suggests, makes no excuses for addressing issues that commonly occur in Cohen’s past work. Originally a poet and novelist, he gracefully deals with age-old lyrics of love, life and loss, with more than the odd reference to religion and mortality throughout the record.
Old Ideas opens with ‘Going Home’ and the line, “I love to speak with Leonard”. By referring to himself in the third person, Cohen takes a self-satirising step back and shows that he doesn’t always take himself too seriously. With one of the themes of the album being origins, Cohen and his guitar return to his fingerpicking acoustic roots on ‘Darkness’, before giving way to a full band for some uptempo fare which adds variety and interest.
In the same vein, ‘Crazy to Love You’ finds this old master at his best, accompanied by a lone guitar lamenting a failed relationship. The final track, ‘Different Sides’, doesn’t quite feel like a goodbye with a fadeout over the chorus, giving the album a somewhat open ending. Who knows, Cohen might return, but Old Ideas makes no promises.The album may not offer the most accessible route for newcomers, but could spark some interest in Cohen’s celebrated back catalogue. Yet Old Ideas is not searching for anything groundbreaking. In an age when innovation is upheld and venerated, what we have here is Leonard Cohen doing what he does, and doing it well.