The Future is Leonard Cohen's tenth album and the first since I'm Your Man from 1988. Since then a number of luminaries have recorded I'm Your Fan to pay homage to Leonard Cohen. His place in the history books is assured, but does he have anything new to offer?
The Future's shortcomings are easy to see. For starters, the album lasts for nearly an hour, still there are only nine songs on it. Most of the songs are very simple and repetetive and go on for far too long. Also, even though it had been over four years, Cohen must have been short of inspiration, as he has written only six originals. There is one pointless instrumental, called Tacoma Trailer, which closes the album, and there are two covers. These being Always, composed by Irving Berlin, and Be for Real, written by relatively unknown soul man Frederic Knight (whose only hit I've been Lonely So Long was recently covered by Mich Jagger.) Both songs work okay and perhaps they were included to lighten the mood. Because from Cohen's own composition one gets the impression that that the end of the world is surely nigh. Democracy and Anthem stumble over the weight of their own worthiness, while Light as the Breeze and Waiting for the Miracle are just plain boring. It is only his often absurd sense of humour which saves the lyrics from becoming pathetic.
His voice hasn't aged well either. It has become black, gravely croak. Therefore he has to rely on female backing singers to make the somewhat more listenable. But frankly, perhaps it would have been better if Leonard Cohen had released just the song The Future instead of a whole album. Because in the title track he says it all. "Give me back your broken night, my secret room, my secret life / It's lonely here, there's no one left to torture / Give me absolute control over every living soul / And lie beside me, baby, that's an order!" After that early highpoint things unfortunately begin to slide in all directions but the right one.
Oene Kummer