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Songs Of Love And Hate
Leonard Cohen
Columbia, 1971
REVIEW BY: Sean McCarthy
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 06/20/2007
If a music collector alphabetizes his or her collection according to mood, no doubt Leonard Cohen would be in the ‘downer’ section next to Portishead, Cowboy Junkies and assorted breakup albums.
Already an established writer by the time his debut album came out in 1968, Cohen’s ghostly, Depression-era vocal delivery seemed like a transported era in the late ‘60s, where distorted feedback, spacey keyboards and squalling guitars were the radio norm.
Using minimal orchestration, Cohen’s weathered voice made Songs of Leonard Cohen a damn-near flawless debut. His third album, Songs of Love and Hate, doesn’t achieve quite the amazing peaks of Songs of Leonard Cohen but it’s probably his second finest recording – and a tremendously focused album.
“Avalanche” kicks off the album with a spaghetti Western-like guitar riff, ushering in Cohen’s weighty voice. With no repeating chorus, Cohen turns the song into an exercise in storytelling, needling in lines of spite like “Your pain is no credential here / it’s just a shadow of my wounds.”
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