Spanning a career of over thirty years, ‘Forever Endeavour’ is the latest offering from Canadian craftsman Ron Sexsmith, whose pairing with producer Mitchell Froom, seems to pay dividends. This creative combination is seen as a welcome return and the partnership responsible for Sexsmiths first three albums as well as the 2006 release ‘Time Being’. Sexsmith’s 2011 album ‘Long Player Late Bloomer’,  saw criticism stem from those who have been with the singer/songwriter since his debut release in 1991. Deemed as an attempt at pop market conformity, this latest album needed to be one of redemption to some extent, ‘Forever Endeavour’ delivers that, but not a whole lot more.

We are initially met with Nowhere To Go featuring a delicious vocal, expressing lyrics of despair. Much like the next track Nowhere Is’and later Blind Eye, all songs boast slick string arrangements and French horn, and are early indications of the slow release of energy throughout the album.

If Only Avenue is one of many songs of realisation and reflection, as Sexsmith croons ‘with the luxury of hindsight the past becomes so clear, as I look out on the twilight my days have become years’. It’s a regretful, mid-tempo number and like much of the album, is heavily influenced by Sexsmith’s health scare in 2011, where a lump in his throat was detected, and the inevitable MRI and CT scans that would ensue while recording.

Snake Road is an altogether more uplifting track with a bluesy twist and a catchy saxophone led chorus.  Yet songs like Lost In Thought, Back Of My Hand and conclusive track The Morning Lights fail to resonate or capture.  They are stilted, and fail to inject any sort of energy to stand up and take account of. Sneak Out The Backdoor is played solo by Sexsmith. Paired only with a guitar, he professes exactly what he is best known for, poignantly honest lyrics, in this case about exiting the world with no real fuss.

‘Forever Endeavour’ is an album of realisation. Its ultimately melancholy sentiments are delivered comfortably by the baby-faced maestro of delicately poetic lyrics, an album of slow-energy released through a cleverness of cool acoustics, woodwind and string arrangements.