On his ninth album, ‘Exit Strategy of the Soul’, Canadian songsmith Ron Sexsmith delivers a provocative collection filled with soul and gospel music that is ornamented by a Cuban horn section and his own gorgeously imperfect piano playing.

Working again with Swedish-born producer Martin Terefe, Sexsmith’s songs encompass the gamut of human emotion while maintaining a breathtaking intimacy and plainspoken poetic grace.

The sweet and stylistic themes of these 14 tracks which fall into the realm of what Sexsmith calls ‘shadow gospel’, come into full flower on such memorable songs as the horn-drenched ‘This Is How I Know’, the aching ‘Hard Times’, the playful ‘Brandy Alexander’ and the buoyantly humanistic ‘Brighter Still’.

The record is framed by a pair of evocative instrumentals redolent of Randy Newman’s film music, ‘Spiritude’ and ‘Dawn Anna’.

Exit Strategy finds Sexsmith at his most soulful. While the last album the Canadian singer worked on with Terefe, ‘Retriever’, was a straight-ahead, sixties-style pop album, this one is even more old-fashioned and rough.

At the heart of this record is some very questionable piano playing which only adds to the album’s charm. The unpolished quality of the ivory-tinkling is the springboard for the sound for of the record with other musicians bouncing off it.

The spirit of spontaneity on Exit Strategy extends to the vocals where Sexsmith is more interested in getting an unfussy vibe than being precious about his voice and having everything technically perfect.

Joined by a roomful of Cuban musicians, Sexsmith surprisingly manages to get more of a 1960s Memphis feel from the music than a big playful Havana sound which the Alexa Cuba Band might have led us to suspect.

As always with Ron Sexsmith the priority is the song itself. The lyrics and the melody are as flawless as ever. Venturing into more psychological terrain with his lyrics than he has on previous records, there is even something a little more poetic about the song-writing here, with the piano only adding to the gospel-y attitude of it all. This is top-notch stuff—same as always, then…
(4/5)

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