Ron Sexsmith - Other Songs

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Free Music Notes for Other Songs

Free Music Review: Sad Beauty
Hit: 5 Stars

On first listen Sexsmith seems too simple and maybe a little dreary. He's patently un-hip. Yet he's also unaffected, so much so that when you'd ordinarily find reason to dismiss him he has a hook in and the material starts building in your head. These are the kind of songs that keep you up at night. His melodies are spare and pretty. His lyrics have a direct innocence that is not naive but more like a haiku, stripped down and poignant with a pervasive hint of sadness ("So young we had no choice, we were pulled along by the ancient voice of girls and boys"). His singing is young sounding and direct, like Brian Wilson or maybe like McCartney without all his affectations.

This album has a weird intimacy, not like he's talking to you but like you're listening in to his thoughts--even the passing observations ("Standing on the side of the road near the overpass with a sign around his neck that says 'Carwash, Free Balloons' is a clown in broad daylight").

Producers Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake never get in Sexsmith's way; they avoid their tendency to overlay density and textures to the production. You can hear the grass grow on this record. It's quiet and gentle--and sometimes harrowing.

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