Ron Sexsmith: Blue Boy : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

After three albums of conspicuously well-mannered singer-songwriter pop that accrued more critical hosannas than hard sales, who can blame Ron Sexsmith for wanting to loosen up a little? Thanks to the hands of producers Steve Earle and Ray Kennedy, there's a bit more bounce in Sexsmith's rhythm section, and the less-burnished quality of their tracks tempers the formality of Sexsmith's Anglo musical roots. Blue Boy offers his widest stylistic assortment yet, from intimate blues ("Foolproof") to extroverted rock ("Keep It in Mind"). These leavening touches are welcome, as the overcast sensitivity that has earned the Canadian comparisons to Leonard Cohen - best evidenced in "Cheap Hotel," a small, dark gem about a woman fleeing an abusive marriage - appears to have been further bruised by his experiences in the music-industry arena. "I came unarmed, they've all got knives/How can this song survive?" he laments in "This Song." Somehow, these songs do, and we should be thankful.

BEN EDMONDS
(RS 872 - July 5, 2001)