Leonard Cohen's deeply personal first LPs came out at a time when many of his peers were issuing furious, counterculture-inspired rants; he clearly had little interest in sticking with the pack at the time. So it makes a certain kind of contrary sense that Cohen would put out an offbeat topical collection two and a half decades later. The Future is an odd duck of an album; it's also brave, funny, and fascinating. "Give me back the Berlin Wall / Give me Stalin and St. Paul," Cohen petitions sardonically in the title track, adding, "I've seen the future, brother: it is murder." "Can't run no more with the lawless crowd / While the killers in high places say their prayers out loud," he intones in "Anthem." In "Democracy," he name-checks Tiananmen Square while surveying the United States ("The cradle of the best and of the worst"). Cohen has only improved with age as a vocalist; he sounds like a cross between Mark Knopfler and Barry White. While the polished production takes some getting used to, it's somehow suitable that cooing background vocals and programmed tracks temper these low-boil diatribes. This is, after all, The Future. --Steven Stolder
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