Local Music Blog: New Music Releases for the Week of Jan. 31

Any week a new Leonard Cohen album comes out is bound to be a good week. And as it is with all his work, his 12th studio effort, Old Ideas does not disappoint. I could listen to that gravelly, whispering-more-than-singing voice all day long and never get bored.

Though I don’t usually get into lyrics here, one must make an exception for an exceptional poet like Mr. Cohen. One the first track, Going Home, God gets all the best lines as he decides to pay Leonard a conversational visit.

I love to speak with Leonard / He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard / Living in a suit

But he does say what I tell him / Even though it isn’t welcome
He just doesn't have the freedom / To refuse

He will speak these words of wisdom / Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing / But the brief elaboration of a tube

And this ain’t no maudlin senior citizen singer lamenting the winter of his discontent, either. No! It’s a 77-year-old man with one heck of a sense of humor who knows his time is short (listen to The Darkness) and just gets better with every album.

Then the Supreme Being explains why he’s calling on Leonard:

I want him to be certain / That he doesn’t have a burden
That he doesn’t need a vision / That he only has permission
To do my instant bidding / Which is to say what I have told him
To repeat

I could continue, but what’s the point? Anyone over 50 really oughtta own this album which makes it a rare must have.

Since that was the only Jan. 31 release that piqued my interest, as previously promised, we’ll catch up on a couple of items that we missed.

You may think you don’t know the group Chairlift, but you do. Think back to one of those catchy earlier iPod commercials and start singing these lyrics

I tried to do handstands for you / I tried to do headstands for you

“Oh! That’s chairlift!” Yes it is!

After a failed romance between singer Caroline Polachek and founding member Aaron Pfenning, the group is now a duo (Pfenning left), and there’s no surefire hit like the aforementioned Bruises, but their second full-length effort, Something, is a solid effort.

Reviewers often refer to Chairlift as an '80s throwback, but I hear much more than that in their music. There certainly are those pop elements, but there’s a heavy jazz influence that sets their music apart from those much-heralded troubadours of the keytar era.

The bottom line is Something contains the kind of catchy music that makes you want to put in the earbuds, forget about your tribulations, and dance around the family room floor with the vacuum cleaner.

I heartily and highly recommend this effort.

Then we have Clear Hears Full Eyes, the first solo effort from the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. And while I certainly am fond of his Springsteen-esque main gig, I think I like this somewhat less Springsteen-esque solo effort a bit better.

It’s still got the humor, the blues progressions, the references to Jesus, the likeable losers doomed to failure, and even though, on No Future, Finn sighs, “I’m pretty sure we’re all gonna die,” his and our redemption is always around the corner.

Though he takes his advice from Freddie Mercury and Johnny Rotten, I hope Mr. Finn eventually finds his salvation and covers the process on a second solo album.

Because this one is a bit spotty, we’ll go with a recommended rating.

That’s it for this week! Our next brings us Van Halen (please don’t suck, please don’t suck … ), one of my favorite groups, The Fray, and Dr. Dog. Until then, I’ll be laying down in front of the fireplace listening to some Leonard Cohen wishing I could write a song like that.