Thirteen new (and old) songs from Canada's hippest seventy-year-old. It's folly to complain that Leonard Cohen has lost his voice, since he never really had one to begin with. From the thin Canadian-folkie drawl of 1967's Songs of Leonard Cohen to the grave, gravelly tone that settled in circa 1988's I'm Your Man, Cohen is such a sourpuss that it's easy to miss his jokes. Take "Because Of," from the new Dear Heather, in which he seems to enact the title of his 1977 album, Death of a Ladies' Man: "Because of a few songs/Wherein I spoke of their mystery/Women have been exceptionally kind to my old age," he croaks as only someone who lived with Rebecca De Mornay in his fifties before heading off to a monastery in his sixties can. "They say, 'Look at me, Leonard/Look at me one last time.' "

What makes Dear Heather tick are the ladies who look back: longtime co-composer/producer Sharon Robinson and producer-engineer Leanne Ungar, as well as occasional co-lead vocalist Anjani Thomas, who open up the arrangements from the often repetitive Casio-lounge feel of 2001's Ten New Songs. Sometimes their work evokes wood paneling and tip jars ("Go No More A-Roving," with words by another famous poet, Lord Byron); sometimes it's stark (the spoken-with-piano "Villanelle for Our Time"); sometimes subdued and trip-hoppy ("The Letters"). But given how monochromatic Cohen tends to be, the jumbled feel works in Dear Heather's favor.

“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”