Leonard Cohen, Songs of Love and Hate (side A)

1971's Songs of Love and Hate pulls Leonard Cohen's songs in a few extremes, in comparison to the two records that preceded it.  The most surprising extreme might be "Diamonds in the Mine", with a straightforward country-rock arrangement that falls closer to John Prine or Townes Van Zandt than anything usually associated with Cohen.  It also has little in common with the rest of the album, and feels like an afterthought at the end of side A.  Another leap for Cohen is how aggressive the sneer in his voice reaches in parts of the album.  While his music often emphasizes dark emotions, the arrangements never emphasize anger one of these dark sentiments, and his vocal takes on albums usually mesh more closely with the arrangements.  In several points of Songs of Love and Hate, Cohen's sneering anger leaps out in his vocal takes.  While Paul Buckmaster is known for working on lighter pop throughout his career, from Elton John to Taylor Swift, here he contributes dark, foreboding string arrangements that feel heavy even alongside Cohen's lyrical content.  Against these dark arrangements, Cohen's guitar sounds bright and clean and modern, emphasizing the transformations in recording technology in the early-70s.  The front cover's use of a portrait borrows from the vocabulary of a songwriter album, but then buries it under gigantic fonts, and the solid black inner sleeve nicely extends the mood of this cover.