LEONARD COHEN “Thanks For The Dance” [Sony Music Entertainment]
You might ask yourself why LEONARD COHEN is sneaking into a website about Metal music. Though mostly Metal music is dark, at times melancholic and often nostalgic… and if someone is about darkness, melancholy and nostalgic walks through the park, it is LEONARD COHEN – and when speaking of such, the mighty man in black JOHNNY CASH is also ranking high on that list!
“If You Want It Darker”, the man’s last album released while alive from 2016, he died 16 days after the release, is the darkest and most profound he has recorded and released, which makes quite good sense, as he more or less was bound to his home the last few years of his legendary life, and knew which direction things were going. Here he, together with his son Adam, wrote and recorded “If You Want It Darker” and the blueprints for this album “Thanks For The Dance”, a reflective masterpiece of darkness and melancholy.
One thing is the man’s voice, it is deep and profound, mesmerizing and melancholic, though the lyrical work is often genious, he has a way of penning and articulating his lyrics, so the hit the right spot, all the time, it is tough not to be moved, in some way or another, while listening to COHEN. Musically the album is built quite good as well, there are tracks where the vocal are taking most of the weight, other tracks where the vocal again is at center, but being carried even further up by brilliant arrangements, just take a listen to ‘The Goal’.
Again a brilliant album from the hands and mind of LEONAD COHEN, a final farewell to this world and whats left behind, quite a beautiful farewell, a farewell to a legendary carreer and a life in full, farewell to profoundness and lyrical and musical musings, and a hello to a place without dance cloaked in darkness. The vocals for the album was recorded in the same session as “If You Want It Darker” and finished by producer and son Adam Cohen after sketches and talks they had during, during the writing and recording of the vocals, an excellent job indeed by Adam!