![[Sharps and Flats]](http://www.salonmagazine.com/may97/sharps/sharps.gif)
RECENT REVIEWS:
6/20/97:
6/19/97:
6/18/97:
6/17/97:
6/16/97:
SEARCH MUSIC ARCHIVES BY:
|
ronsexsmith_____
BY KEITH MOERER | nothing much happens in the songs of Ron Sexsmith, but most everything you need to know is contained in his tremulous voice and hushed melodies. This is a guy who married young, and while he still loves his wife and young son, he can't quite shake a sense of longing and regret. You can hear this most clearly on "Lebanon, Tennessee," a track on his self-titled 1995 debut. It's about being homesick for a place he's never been to, and it's clear he's seeking escape and a kind of deliverance, too. Even if you don't know that Sexsmith used to work as a messenger in Toronto, he sounds like he's pinning his future on a pair of words scratched on someone else's address label. Hearing it, the only question is whether he'll take his family with him. "Other Songs" offers proof that, instead of leaving, Sexsmith has stuck it out -- a course with its own mix of sacrifice and reward. Produced like his debut by Mitchell Froom (Suzanne Vega, Los Lobos), the new album relies almost exclusively on Sexsmith's guitar, a whispering rhythm section and Froom's collection of odd, vintage keyboards. Its 14 songs never move faster than a light trot, as if Sexsmith has settled for good on a life of unhurried domesticity. There are songs about visiting a graveyard with his son, refusing to have his mood ruined by a spring rainstorm and catching his own lame expression in a storefront window. In the wrong mouth, these subjects could be deadly dull, but Sexsmith imbues them with a sad beauty that's hard to resist. At times his melodies -- drawing on classic pop, country and folk-rock -- are almost too pretty, but his eccentric phrasing cuts the sugar content by half. The closest Sexsmith comes to outright cliché is "Child Star," which, thankfully, is sung as a comforting lullaby instead of as a cautionary tale or cheap joke. Based on the songs alone, I'd guess Sexsmith's marriage has seen its rough patches, with the shadow of adultery falling over "Nothing Good," and his plea for forgiveness in "Honest Mistake." My one complaint is that Sexsmith's rich interior life leaves his description of strangers a little sketchy, whether it's the childhood classmate he catches sight of as an adult or the old couple his son talks to in "Pretty Little Cemetery." It's probably no coincidence, though, that a song like "Thinly Veiled Disguise" has a melody that is almost hymnlike: When your faith is banked so steeply in family, you've no choice but to survive every minor crisis and savor each small
blessing.
Keith Moerer is a regular contributor to Salon. |
