Page 88 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

ALBUMS
Leonard Cohen
Thanks For The Dance SONY
Famous friends flesh out final curtain call.
hen Leonard Cohen’s last
album, You Want It Darker, was
Wreleased in October 2016,
a month before his death, preparations
were already under way for what the
singer-songwriter knew would be the
posthumous part of his career. Diagnosed
with leukaemia, the 82-year-old entrusted
his producer-arranger son Adam to add
instrumentation and melody to a series of
isolated recordings of him reciting new or
less celebrated lyrics.
“Maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t
know,” he told New Yorker magazine
during his last days. “But I don’t dare
attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I’ve
got some work to do.” Prior to assembling
Thanks For The Dance, however, Cohen
junior curated The Flame, a collection of
lyrics and poetry published in 2018
which, it now transpires, served as
a prelude to this last long player.
Both open with Happens To The Heart,
a suitably wry summation of a man
nearing the end of a journey, peppered
with the wit that often goes unnoticed
among casual Cohen observers: ‘I’ve
broken every window, but the house, the house
is dark/I care, but very little, what happens to
the heart.’
Elsewhere there is other material that
will be familiar to Cohen fans. The Hills,
another sombre reflection on mortality,
88 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
is adapted from his 2006 poetry collection
Book Of Longing, the closing Listen To The
Hummingbird was first recited at
a promotional event for You Want It Darker,
while the title track first appeared on Blue
Alert, a 2006 album by Cohen’s girlfriend
and backing singer Anjani Thomas.
It all makes for an intriguing but brief
album (the nine songs clock in at just over
30 minutes), but throughout there’s
a nagging sense of Cohen’s spoken-word
skeletons fleshed out with arguably too
little musicality. Each song’s lyric tends to
follow a rigid metre, a noticeably even
number of syllables in every line, which
ultimately makes it easier for Adam to
embellish in the studio.
The result is a soundscape that
occasionally comes across as formulaic,
adhering to chord sequences and
structures that had served Cohen well in
the past, yet performed with pristine
clarity by the younger man and musician
fans including Beck, Arcade Fire’s Richard
Reed Parry, Damien Rice and Leslie Feist,
not to mention long-serving collaborators
such as Jennifer Warnes. While there’s
nothing radically off-blueprint in the
finished article, it’s obvious that every
note has been pored over with love
and respect.
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Terry Staunton
Of Allies which nods to the inky grunge of
Are We Better Off? Soundgarden. For all the band’s
SELF-RELEASED clear influences, though, Soul On
Yorkshire foursome push their Fire is very much its own
own boundaries. untamed beast, and one worth
While Hull setting loose into your life.
quartet Of QQQQQQQQQQ
Allies’ second Emma Johnston
album begins
with a futuristic Walrus
robot voice talking about tarot Cool To Who OUTSIDE MUSIC
cards, ‘hierophants’ and other Goo goo g’joob.
such semi-mystic portent, the It’s a thin line
band haven’t suddenly gone between
prog rock on our asses. As the sounding
album proper kicks into gear, it wistful and
becomes clear that their bedrock sounding
sonic elements – alternative aimless, and at times on their
metal with emo-infused melody second album Nova Scotia band
always clawing anxiously at Walrus have trouble keeping
the edges – are still functioning their balance. Their calling card
very effectively. is an abiding love of 60s
While the anthemic, psychedelia and 90s Britpop,
melancholic hooks on Still embossed with fluid melodies
Memory are impressively incisive and an instrumental sound fresh
and polished, the metallic riff from the garage.
volleys of Blossoms and An Echo At its best – on the title track
deliver satisfyingly visceral heft. and the Kinks-reminiscent Mr
There’s also more going on here Insecure – they luxuriate in the
beyond the expected. Off The reflected glow of nostalgia, and
Map veers into techno-rock at on Ballad Of Love (Or Something)
times, while intricately
they manage to emulate Oasis
constructed tracks such as the without resorting to The Beatles.
dreamier, soft-sung title song What’s missing from these
and The Hierophant, with an pastiches is a sense of Walrus’s
opening that echoes Radiohead’s own identity, which isn’t helped
Climbing Up The Walls, suggest by the way their vocals have
this is a band whose potential is been ‘treated’. True, they sing
still being explored. about their own adventures,
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Johnny Sharp road and the joys of their home
The Last town Halifax, but it doesn’t bring
Internationale them into focus. It also begs
the question: where do they go
Soul On Fire SELF-RELEASED from here?
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Wild blues-rock fury from New Hugh Fielder
York firebrands.
Imagine Grace
Slick extolling Lauren Tate
the politics of Songs For Sad Girls
Rage Against TRASH QUEEN
The Machine A fist in a velvet glove hits the
and setting it to a howling blues- right targets.
rock template, and you’re 2019 has turned
somewhere close to the essence out to be a busy
of The Last Internationale. year for Lauren
Kicking off with a roar of Tate. Best
feedback before powering into known as the
the White Stripes stomp of frontwoman with the grunge-
Hard Times, with its steely inspired Hands Off Gretel,
revolutionary demands, Soul On whose second album I Want The
Fire punches determinedly World was released in the spring,
upwards while retaining an she returns with a career
impeccable groove. highlight in the shape of this, her
The core duo of Delia Paz – third solo album.
whose molten vocals have soul Songs For Sad Girls pulls
and attitude in abundance – and absolutely no punches as it more
guitarist Edgey Pires time-travel than lives up to its title. Fuelled
back to the birth of the blues and by a righteous anger, this album
drag it kicking and screaming hits back at abusive relationships
into the 21st century, pilfering (Can’t Keep My Hands Off You),
from Jimi Hendrix and Janis underage exploitation (Rock
Joplin (both name-checked in N Roll Radio) and body shaming
the title track) along the way and (Miss American Perfect Body). It’s
mixing in a darkness and ire a tough pill to swallow, but