Consumer Guide Album

Leonard Cohen: Recent Songs [Columbia, 1979]
Cohen's arrangements are even more detailed and surprising than John Lissauer's, and Jennifer Warnes is the most valuable backup singer since Emmylou Harris. "The Traitor" is a minor masterpiece. And in general this record's take on courtly love in the swingers' era packs more ironic intelligence than you would have thought possible. Or necessary, unfortunately. Cohen's gift for elementary hummables seems to deteriorate as his writing evolves from the conversational toward the allegorical. Irony or no irony, "rages of fragrance" and "rags of remorse" sound suspiciously like bad poetry even when they're sung, and that's not now it's supposed to work. B