This is turning into a particularly interesting moment for Leonard Cohen watchers. After David Bowie caught us with our collective pants down, so to speak, we seem to be on heightened alert, looking for signs – any signs – that this 'boudoir poet' is about to kick the bucket, to go to pastures new, and to finally cash in his chips.

The runes were read and the internet caught fire when he said in an interview for The New Yorker that: "I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me." Meanwhile, his final letter to his former lover and muse, Marianne Ihlen, was read out at her recent funeral; “We are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon.” He has also stopped performing live, his last gig was at the tail end of 2013, and a recent interviewer noted his hands were shaking.

But were all getting a little carried away here. He's 82 goddamit; he could die tomorrow, he may live another 10-20 years. And while there's no doubting his days are numbered (aren't all our days numbered?), the important thing to recognise is that he's being productive while he can still be, while his body is able to sum up the strength and his mind can do what it has always done; conceive, ponder, elucidate. He has, in his own words, still got his marbles. In You Want It Darker he's come up with some of the best work of his entire musical career, aided by an apparently pestering son, Adam, who suggested he strip it back, go back to basics.

The other strand to the heightened interest in Cohen is the fact his old friend Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature (although current signs are that he may be about to reject it), with many claiming that perhaps Cohen, or his fellow countrywoman Joni Mitchell, should have won it. This is really a step too far, as is the fact that Dylan was awarded the prize. You Want It Darker is only his 14th studio album in a career that has spanned 49 years. Dylan has produced 37, and he still doesn't deserve to get the Nobel in my humble opinion (it's tokenistic; it's a PR excercise; it's a prize for literature, not songwriting; he's produced many-a-duff lyric; there are plenty of greater writers out there who will never receive that kind of recognition). But I think Cohen is the more beautiful, soulful, humanistic writer. And that is reflected on this album.

There is no doubt that with advanced age comes advanced thoughts of mortality and death, work to be finished before it’s too late. And these are unsurprisingly widespread in the mind of Cohen, as he strips back the music almost to the bare bones, revealing a total no-frills approach to songwriting, much in the same way that Rick Rubin did for Johnny Cash in his later years. But Cohen was always a bit more in charge of his music, as a songwriter and song arranger, and here he went in to his home studio to demo the eight songs (the ninth, is largely an instrumental 'reprise') that make up the album. Cohen Jr and Pat Leonard worked on the results, but kept the sparseness, while Cohen continued down the roads he knows so well; those of love, lust, faith and betrayal, all wrapped up in lightly acerbic comment, irony, and a little bit of regret and despair.

Title and lead track 'You Want It Darker' is the perfect introduction to Cohen, if you need one. Operating within the elegant confines of hymnal male backing vocals (supplied by his old Montreal synagogue), a snaking bass and a very simple percussive beat, Cohen gives us his take on religion: "If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game / If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame / If thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame / You want it darker, we kill the flame."

The mix is perfect; Cohen's wearily upfront and clear as a bell baritone is very gently overlaid by the musical backing, a backing so sparse and minimalist in places, you'd be forgiven to think it subservient and secondary. But there is a magnificent elegance and controlled dynamism throughout. Such as 'Treaty' (a repeating word/reference throughout the album): "I wish there was a treaty we could sign, I do not care who takes this bloody hill/ I'm angry and I'm tired all the time, I wish there was a treaty between your love and mine," Cohen sing-talks while barely perceptible double bass, piano and marching style strings evoke both the man at battle, and at peace.

His son Adam recently said about his father; "He's sweating over every syllable. These songs are the end result of the exactitude of language. And then communicating frightening and personal truths."

The fact that Cohen seems to be wholly in the moment, with even less than the notoriously few distractions and worldly possessions he has in his life, is reflected by the complete intimacy of the recording, a sound that invites you to luxuriate within the inoffensive and relaxing, but striking tones, textures and vibes. You can hear it on everthing else here; from the vaguely retro and gentle grooves of 'On the Level’ (complete with the immortal line: "I turned my back on the devil, and the angel too.") to the very laid-back country flavours of 'Leaving The Table'; and from the Sicilian rhythms of 'Traveling Light' ("I'm traveling light, it's au revoir / My once so bright, my fallen star") to 'Steer Your Way', a beautifully transcending – musically and lyrically – journey through the condensced wisdom of Cohen: "Steer your heart, past the truths that you believed in yesterday, such as fundamental goodness and the wisdom of the way. Steer your heart. Year by year, month by month, day by day, thought by thought."

Reflective farewells are the order of the day here. But for Cohen, his on-the-surface regrets and vocal gloom are decidedly overridden by a lightness of touch, indeed a sly theatricality and gentle self-mocking, that typically takes his music and messages beyond the mundane, but never crossing into the over-wrought, the deadly serious. Life goes on. For Leonard Cohen.
Jeff Hemmings

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