In the election year of 1992, Leonard Cohen wrote a song with this brilliantly subtle dig: “Democracy is coming / To the U.S.A.” Outraged by an imperialist nation that ignores its poor, yet buoyed by a beautiful, irrational hope, “Democracy” was gorgeously personal political commentary. By the end of the seven-minute track, Cohen is striking a chord with all Americans who love their country in spite of it all:

I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s probably just a coincidence, but 24 years later, Cohen has once again tapped into the mood of a nation that is on the cusp of sending a Clinton to the White House. You Want it Darker, the singer/songwriter’s 14th studio album, has dropped in our laps a few weeks before election day, and it’s a spare, haunting treatise on regret and betrayal that should act as a cautionary tale for anyone on the fence about voting. The 82-year-old continues to be uncannily good at comparing fraying love affairs to crises of faith. Inevitably, his narrators end up alone, muttering to themselves, and clutching a glass of wine – the only difference is whether it’s consecrated or not.

Musically, Darker is more meditative and mournful, closer to Cohen’s synth-goth classics of the 1980s then the wry, ramshackle folk and blues of albums like 2014’s Popular Problems. Producer Adam Cohen relies on muted beds of keyboards and ominous choral harmonies, lighting just enough candles to show his father the way to the altar. Lovely wrinkles pop up here and there – like the spirited, Kate Bush-esque violin on “Steer the Way” – but conceptually and tonally, this is the most consistent group of songs that Leonard Cohen has put out since he hit retirement age.

And good Christ, does he make the most of it. Cohen’s voice seems to get deeper by the decade; on Darker his deadpan croon sounds like a old bass clarinet – very deep and dependably cracked. He sounds like a man who has lived long enough to be played for a sucker 100 times, a worshipper who’s gotten used to being taken for granted by his deity. “You want it darker/We kill the flame,” he whispers over the gentle choral tides of the title track. Like he’s done so many times before, Cohen uncovers the seductive, dangerous pull of fundamentalist submission, being able to have your reality decided for you, to be told you’re right and good and that others are wrong and evil. With Donald Trump one step away from the White House, it should be mandatory listening.

Speaking of Trump, I’ve gotta believe he was somewhere in Cohen’s head when he wrote “It Seemed the Better Way,” a spine-tingling slow-build ballad that’s the record’s most harrowing moment. It could be written from the perspective of someone who’s saying “at least he’s not Hillary” on Facebook right now, standing in toxic rubble during year two of a Trump presidency:

Sounded like the truth
Seemed the better way
Sounded like the truth
But it’s not the truth today

You Want it Darker might only be a political album in context. But by taking one of the best artists to ever write about the pitfalls of faith and giving him one last crack at the god that never wrote him back, this record has the angry, weary energy of a nation that is sick and tired of being lied to. It’s easy to get depressed these days, but when I hear Leonard Cohen creating relevant, bewitching works of art in his ninth decade on Earth, I think about what humanity is capable of, and how incredibly resilient we can be. Fuck it. Democracy is coming.