COHEN, LEONARD – Songs Of Love And Hate

Songs From A Room, Cohen’s second album, was for me a great improvement over his first because of restraint in the use of strings, clarions and angelic choirs, and because the compositions themselves were fairly even in quality (with “Bird on the Wire” and “Story of Issac” two really tight, clean stand-outs). And short — he shouldn’t be straining the frail but frequently quite lovely melodies to five and six minutes, as he does on Songs of Love and Hate. But this record, alas, goes back to all the trash that cluttered up the first album — schlock horns, schlock strings, schlock chorus — as if to make of it a style. Recognizable, yes no one but Leonard Cohen could have come out with these arrangements but a style, no.There are a couple of terrific songs on this one (Cohen is one of those artists who would benefit greatly by a “Best Of” album), though the record as a whole has not the charm that his first develops after a long while it is not as likable, because it is frequently downrigh