Novelist the best lyricist in rock and roll

In recent interviews, Leonard Cohen has said that the deep depression he has felt throughout his career is over. He has spent the better part of the nine years since his last album living in a monastery, where he said he learned that it was all pointless. As to be expected, Cohen's latest album, Ten New Songs, reflects his "personal growth."\nCohen always was the best lyricist in rock and roll, using his novelist decadence and eye for detail to out-do contemporaries such as Bob Dylan, Randy Newman and Lou Reed. His songs read like novels, stories dipping deep into the darker realms of the psyche. \nThe use of synthesizers and syncopated drum beats on Ten New Songs sounds a little dated. But only dated by 10 years or so, which is excusable because Cohen is only a few moments away from his 70th birthday. For the most part, the arrangements are subtle enough and stay out of the way of his terrific lyrics. \nThick imagery, which is expected of Cohen, is still here. On "Alexandra Leaving" the inevitable and coincidental meetings of sex and God are explored. This is familiar ground for anyone acquainted with Cohen's work. \nHe also explores his imminent death and voyage to the afterlife on "Boogie Street." He plainly says, "Bewildered by your beauty there/ I'd kneel to dry your feet./ By such instructions you prepare/ A man for Boogie Street."\nCohen also reminisces about his well publicized problems on "That Don't Make It Junk." "I fought against the bottle/ But I had to do it drunk/ Took my diamond to the pawn shop/ But that don't make it junk," he sings of his demons. \nTen New Songs is an album that finds Cohen writing about the same types of acquaintances and ostentatious types that have graced his work since he was writing novels in the '50s. But this time, he writes in the past tense. Cohen doesn't find his characters beautiful anymore, nor does he find them sophisticated. He even manages to sound disgusted and yet longing for them to recompense. As so, Cohen is leading by example and still professing his love for those drunken intellectuals of his past.\nRating: 8