Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith has skirted around the fringes too long now to be unduly concerned about how his records might be received by either public or critics.
That said, with more than a dozen studio albums under his belt since his major-label debut in 1995, it’s reasonable to say that high levels of quality control can’t always be maintained.
And so it proves with Carousel One, which isn't so much a bad record as a below average one.
There is less of a singer-songwriter sensibility throughout, and more of a fulsome, mates-together sound, and while it’s perhaps insensitive to suggest that Sexsmith seems much more at ease singing the lonesome blues than thumbing through a Colour-Me-Beautiful catalogue, there’s little doubt that he operates best when he’s alone, adrift, and somewhat at a loss.
