Last call

Leonard Cohen has never been a happy man, and old age has done nothing to soften his melancholy, often abrasive approach to music. He's rarely sounded as worn-down as when he begins talk-singing in a low growl on the opening track, "Going Home," of his new album Old Ideas, describing himself as a "lazy bastard living in a suit" who's writing a "manual for living with defeat."

That's the dominant tone on Old Ideas, his first new album since 2004. He frequently sounds like some sorry bastard not long for this world singing (and drinking) away the sorrows of his wasted life in some smoke-filled dive bar at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Although Cohen is one of the most accomplished musicians of the last few decades, he doesn't appear to look back on his life with any pride. He's resigned himself to defeat, and when he looks back on his life it's with a strong sense of all the things — and relationships (it's an album filled with long-lost loves) — he's lost.

He's a man (or at least his characters are — the line separating the two can be hard to find) who's lost his love, his youth, his hope and his purpose. All that's left is to die.

If that makes it sound like Old Ideas is a tough album to get through, well, it is. Cohen isn't inclined to do his audience any favors; you're either able to stomach his glum tone or you're not.

As affecting as the album is, it does have its faults. While the writing and vocals are superb, the instrumentation is hit-or-miss. The hardscrabble western guitar on "Darkness" is fantastic, as is the repeated use of a backing chorus of female singers. Their voices' near-angelic youthful beauty provide a subtle counterpoint to Cohen's decrepit baritone. But other tracks, such as the opener, sound like they were recorded on a shitty Casio keyboard.

Furthermore, the songs have a tendency to bleed into one another. The pace on every track falls somewhere between "dirge" and "lugubriously slow," which gives the album an appropriately weary feel, but also makes it hard to differentiate between one downtempo lament and the next.

Still, the album's a lovely, affecting wallow, every bit as wonderfully abrasive — and, at moments, as achingly beautiful — as Warren Zevon's great final album, The Wind. If this is Cohen's final album — and let's hope it's not — he's given his career a near-perfect capstone.

VERDICT: Though it has its problems, Old Ideas is an effectively worn-down album from Leonard Cohen.

rgifford@umdbk.com