Album Review : Leonard Cohen - Thanks for the Dance (2019)

Listen to Thanks for the Dance here

Posthumous albums are an acquired taste. If Tupac Shakur had 200something finished songs lying in his drawer at the time of his death, most recording artists were merely “working on something.” That means they were fucking around in their garage and some label executive decided to cash in on it. That’s not what happened for Leonard Cohen’s Thanks for the Dance. It’s an almost-not-posthumous album and while it feels weary, it has a brittle, crystalline charm.

Thanks for the Dance was partly recorded in the same session than Leonard Cohen’s previous album You Want It Darker in 2016 and completed by his son Adam, who briefly discussed the musical arrangements with his father before his passing. So, these aren’t B-side. There was clearly a plan to release new material produced by Adam Cohen, it’s just that dad couldn’t finish it himself. So, Thanks for the Dance is bare, respectful and centered around Leonard’s voice.

There are great songs on Thanks for the Dance, which are great in the same way Songs of Leonard Cohen is great. They are warm, hypnotic, intricate and oddly discreet. Not the catchiest, but gorgeously written and packaged. The opener Happens to the Heart, is mostly Cohen and a mandolin telling the story of a successful young man who inevitably ran into heartbreak because he loved so much and lived so well. The wisdom hits you right in the feels.

The Night of Santiago is a really, really old school throwback about literally having consensual sex near a river in Santiago, Chile. It has accents of flamenco in the chorus that add just enough color not to be a cliché. Moving On is a soul-crushing admission of defeat that will break whoever had someone walking away from them. It’s not the most accessible song, though since it’s a poem adapted from his collection The Flame. It is bare and radically honest

The title song Thanks for the Dance is great for unconventional reasons. Cohen’s weary, straining voice is really taking a lot of space on this nice, which makes it more intimate than its topic indicates. It’s Torn is another celebration of the codependence of beauty and suffering. The Hills is a heartbreaking tale of frustration about not being able to escape death. Two-thirds of this album is memorable, but why is it the complete package doesn’t feel that way?

Thanks for the Dance is not cerebral and counterintuitive like Leonard Cohen’s early records were. Some of its songs are catchy and haunting in the way his greatest hits are, but they are lyrically heavier and difficult to singalong. It’s like watching a challenging movie, you know? Tom Ford, Lars Von Trier or whatever. You’re happy that you’ve seen it, but it’s not something you’d do over and over. It’s a situational thing that is better enjoyed if you’re in a certain mood.

Ultimately, the consistence and the minimalist craftsmanship of Thanks for the Dance cannot be argued against. It’s a quiet, but solid record. Sure, if you’re into Leonard Cohen it’s probably not what you’re going to reach for first. Still, it’s great mood music that is carried by one of the most magnetic voice as some of the most moving contemporary poetry. It is also a better album than Popular Problem and almost better than Old Ideas.

Late-era Leonard Cohen was the best.

8.0/10