Where has Leonard Cohen been for the past nine years? The legendary songwriter's mostly been in a Zen monastery, it turns out, obsessively rewriting and polishing the oblique, lapidary lyrics for this austere collection. Ten New Songs is arguably Sharon Robinson's record as much as Cohen's--she cowrote all the songs, plays most of the instruments (primarily a synth that seems to have freshly emerged from a chintzy 1984 power ballad), and accompanies Cohen's gloomy croak with her own crooning.
›› read more
