Time Being

1	Hands of Time 3:16
2	Snow Angel 3:53
3	All in Good Time 3:35
4	Never Give Up 3:40
5	I Think We're Lost 2:56
6	Reason for Our Love 3:10
7	Cold Hearted Wind 3:40
8	Jazz at the Bookstore 3:29
9	Ship of Fools 3:09
10	The Grim Trucker 2:59
11	Some Dusty Things 2:37
12	And Now the Day Is Done 4:20

Barnes & Noble

Over the past decade or so, this Canadian has developed a reputation as a songwriter's songwriter -- a household name in households where music is the bread-and-butter, but something of a fringe presence in other realms. Time Being isn't a lock in the profile-raising stakes, but it very well may be Sexsmith's most immediately accessible offering in ages. Yes, he gravitates toward the downbeat -- the doe-eyed "Reason for Our Love" shuffles along slowly, dragging one foot through lounge-jazz territory and the other through Nick Drake's bedsit -- but Sexsmith doesn't wax one-dimensional here. In festooning songs like "Hands of Time" (an amiably ambling ballad that wouldn't be out of place on a Norah Jones album) with subtle keyboard draperies, he offers a burnished sonic counterpoint to his movingly reedy vocals. And when tales like "I Think We're Lost," on which his bewildered delivery belies the sharpness of the lyric, threaten to spin into unleavened darkness, Sexsmith shifts away from the minor chords he usually employs in favor of a Beatlesque melodic warmth. While he nods to the past here and there, Sexsmith is ultimately utterly timeless as both a writer and a performer -- and Time Being is sure to sound as welcoming a decade down the road as it does today. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Time Being reunites the Canadian singer/songwriter with producer Mitchell Froom. As the man behind the glass for almost all of Sexsmith's work in the mid- to late '90s, Froom adapted his rhythmic, hyper-compressed production style to the singer's laconic pop confections with both grace and restraint, resulting in some of the decade's craftiest and coolest adult alternative rock. Like all Ron Sexsmith albums, Time Being is reliable and expertly crafted, and contains a handful of cuts that will kick around in your head until the next one swoops in to replace them. Both Froom and Sexsmith rarely deviate from their chosen styles, so to hear them working together again is both a comfort and a curse. Songs like "Hands of Time," "I Think We're Lost," and the nostalgic "All in Good Time" are all classic Sexsmith (characters looking for that elusive balance between melancholy and hope amidst midtempo acoustic landscapes), but one can't help but wish that he'd stir in a few more songs like "The Grim Trucker" into the pot. A surprising and enigmatic tale of culinary existentialism where Sexsmith adopts a mischievous Ray Davies croon over a serpentine, White Album-era Beatles-sounding arrangement, it offers the listener a glimpse into the kaleidoscope where Sexsmith fishes around for ideas. One hopes that next time around he embarks on a full tour. Reverend Lee Power