This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
In a musical world full of arched eyebrows and wry smirks, irony-free Canadian Ron Sexsmith is one of a dying breed — the earnest, honest-to-goodness singer-songwriter.
He’s also an increasingly capable and sophisticated one; this third studio album finds him branching out into Al Green piano-soul, apparently imagining the song Neil Young would have written if he played with The Byrds and The Band, taking Squirrel Nut Zippers on a raft down the Mississippi and hanging out with Paul McCartney at Bruce Springsteen’s Jersey Shore haunts. Subtly beautiful, quietly evocative and sincere, Whereabouts proves that sometimes, they still do write ’em like they used to.
