His last album Long Player, Late Bloomer did not make Ron Sexsmith the pop star its comparative fluffiness might have suggested was the aim, so Canada's boyish songsmith has returned to the more mournful cadences of his earlier work.
Such flippancy is inappropriate and inaccurate. Sexsmith had a serious health scare on the road between the two discs and if there is a morbidity to some of the lyrics, the prospect of throat cancer might be the obvious explanation. Nor is the set relentlessly downbeat. Snake Road, concerning "those dog days" when he "Couldn't keep my thoughts straight/ Couldn't keep my trousers on" has a spring in its step, and Sneak Out the Back Door and Me Myself and Wine both revel in the more decadent side of existence.
A fine set of songs then, and given superb production by the excellent Mitchell Froom, who oversaw some of Sexsmith's earlier work.
With Pete Thomas on drums and Davey Faragher sharing the bass duties – names well known to Elvis Costello fans – Froom has arranged everything meticulously, adding string quartet, French horn and oboe apparent to the more familiar sonic palette.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article