★★★★★
Now 15 years and nine albums into his career, Ron Sexsmith must wonder what he has to do to get some attention. A model of consistency, his best albums aren't that much different than his worst, just as his greatest songs are only a hair more engaging than his worst, and records like Time Being seem designed to be cherished by a small group of critics, musicians, and singer/songwriter aficionados. That's not to say that Sexsmith is an indistinctive singer/songwriter-far from it...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
Canadian singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith has been celebrated for keeping it simple: At the heart of such masterpieces as Other Songs (1997) and Retriever (2004) are eloquent lyrics and gentle melodies. On Exit Strategy of the Soul, his ninth full-length album, Sexsmith sticks with what works, once again partnering with producer Martin Terefe, to create earnest, effective folk-pop songs...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
The term "old soul" gets thrown around pretty loosely, but if there's one modern songwriter who really fits the bill it's Ron Sexsmith. As a songwriter, Sexsmith has always had a way with writing about "big" topics--love and heartbreak, doubt and redemption, meaning and the struggle to find it- with a sense of humble simplicity that recalls the authenticity of '60s and '70s songwriters like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
For Ron Sexsmith's last album, Long Player Late Bloomer, the highly respected singer/songwriter teamed up with producer Bob Rock in an attempt to add some glossy radio-friendly sheen to his sound. We're glad he got that out of his system, since that kind of treatment just didn't suit the fragility of his songs. Sexsmith's whole charm is about being uncool, and people relate to him as someone who feels he doesn't belong...
- nowtoronto.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
Tender, string-soaked twelfth from Canuck songwriter... As a teenager in smalltown Canada, Ron Sexsmith was known as 'The Human Jukebox', able to deliver the latest hit at a shout from the crowd. At times during his prolific career the singer has likewise seemed to want to please the public rather than himself - with the drum loops and beats of Retriever, for example, or 2011's Long Player, Late Bloomer, a stab at commercial breakthrough overseen by Metallica producer Bob Rock...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2013-04-01
★★★★★
After 20 years in the music business, Sexsmith's 2011 album Long Player Late Bloomer brought him closer to the mainstream than ever, but its success was tempered by a health scare later the same year. Doctors found a lump on his throat, and for the next few months "the spectre of death", as he put it, inspired this set of songs on the themes of mortality and taking stock...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
"I'm a 35-year-old guy from Canada and I don't write groove-oriented music. I can't expect too much," Ron Sexsmith was quoted as saying in 1999, when quizzed on the commercial prospects and potential of his work. Well, Sexsmith is now a 49-year-old guy from Canada who's still not writing groove-oriented music but who's nonetheless proved to be an enduring artist: critically feted, often covered, though not, as he sagely predicted, a household name...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-03-25
★★★★★
Ron Sexsmith is in a difficult spot: Despite his well-structured pop songs and praise from the likes of Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney, his music has been confined to critical darling status. It's a shame, because Sexsmith's music comprises orchestral, Brian Wilson-esque love odes at times, and at others, contemplative, Sea Change- era Beck tunes. His newest album, Forever Endeavour , fuses those elements into an album of tightly-packed pop goodness...
- consequenceofsound.net
2013-02-14
★★★★★
In the summer of 2011, eternally boyish Canadian troubadour endured a major health scare, an issue from which he has thankfully now fully recovered. The wake-up call seems to have injected the 49-year-old's typically melancholic pop signature with both an increased poignancy and, here and there on this, his lucky 13th long-player, moments of near rhapsody. Indeed, Forever Endeavour could be Sexsmith's most persuasive outing since his eponymous 1995 major label debut...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
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