Recorded in London during an extended stay in the UK off the back of his shows last November, the punning title sparked by him passing Hanover Terrace on the way to a gig, variously featuring Ed Harcourt on piano and Robbie McIntosh on guitar, Sexsmith says “this record feels more wounded to me then my previous albums, the world since the pandemic went off the rails a bit and every nerve seemed quite raw. I had some falling outs with a few friends and so there’s some self-examination going on and a desire to know who my real friends are. It also deals with the passing of time and how things become dearer”. However, there’s more warmth and smiles than might be expected.
The midtempo swagger of Don’t Lose Sight gets the ball rolling, offering advice on finding and holding on to love (“Love’s impatient/Don’t ever stall/Or keep it waiting/Don’t make it stand out in the hall/It’s a loyal patron who just wants some attention”) and not leaving words unspoken. Featuring piano, violin and cello, the musically whimsical anti-abstinence Cigarette & Cocktail is unlikely to be endorsed by the medical profession. While it may sound like it’s going to be a cautionary tale (“as kids at grown up parties/All our Fathers and our Mothers/Had a cigarette in one hand/Cocktail in the other/When it came to lungs and livers/Well, they just could not be bothered”) it quickly dispels that with “We can gather dust/Or we can have some fun”, concluding “When on my death bed someday/And should you pull down the covers/There’ll be a cigarette in one hand/And cocktail in the other”.
Initially intended for a musical based on Deer Life, his 2017 fairy tale book, it’s a sentiment that carries over into the poppy fairground shuffling be your authentic self Damn Well Please (“No one should tell you what you can or cannot do/Nobody can tell me that it’s black when I know it’s blue …I got one life that’s all I know/I can say whatever I damn well please/Ain’t gonna tread light on my tiptoes/I can go wherever I damn well please/Gotta be the star of my own show”), declaring himself “intent on poking the bear”.
Martin Terefe on bass, Dan See on drums and again with violin, described as his take on Positively Fourth Street, the fingerpicked, softly sung Easy For You To Say is more musically reflective but still of a confrontational fuck you nature aimed at those quick to judge (“I wear my heart on my sleeve/Where’s your heart at?/With me you get what you see…You have no idea what I’ve been thru…Maybe you could try to walk a mile in my shoes/Go on treat me like an outcast/Say I’m no good/They’d have me banished I guess/How I wish they would”) in the face of those “sitting on your high horse of hypocrisy”, the track becoming more industry specific as he sings “while you’re picking on me/Maybe you could try writing one memorable song instead”, signing off with “You there always virtue signalling/If you think it’s so easy/Maybe you should try it sometime my friend”.
A rockier beat with echoey guitar and shades of Neil Young carries Camelot Towers, a social commentary number about Canada’s housing crisis and aesthetically ugly low income housing (“they fenced off a piece of land/That was doing nothing/For they made a pledge to build/Some more low income housing/The trucks rolled in and they dug up/All the wildflowers/And the sign said future site of Camelot Towers…They made a promise and there it stood/Just like they said it would be/They made a promise and they made good/It was just as big and just as white/And every bit as unsightly as the last”). He drives the point home in the last verse with how “Everybody needs a home/And a home is what you make it…But that’s a soulless piece of stone/And you just can’t escape it/No trace of beauty/And certainly no knights in armour”.
Melodically tumbling and chiming, It’s Been A While turns to memories (“It’s been a while/Since I saw their faces/We used to go so very many places/But life got awful strange/And it tore us all apart/Well, it’s been a while since we played/How I pray they still know it by heart”) and, he’s now 60, the passing years (“Age has come/And dappled our hair with grey/A page has turned/And sprinkled our eyes/In shades of our yesterdays”), resolving to not go quietly into the night (“No one can ever say/How many heartbeats still remain/Well, it’s been a while since I thought/That we ought to be living again”).
Slow and soulful with a brass arrangement and informed with the spirit of Burt Bacharach, House Of Love is a tender reverie about what make a house a home (“Laughter and music in the air/Where the children are free range/Where the grown up children play around a fireplace/With wine filled dreams to share”) where “Life is piled up all around/Dust and disorder everywhere” and “everybody’s helpful/When push comes to shove”. Likewise, kicking the beat back up as drums drive things along accompanied by chiming guitar and piano, the reasons to be cheerful Rose Town deals with finding the pot of gold at the end of rainbow and not screwing it up (“Up ahead/Around the bend/Are reasons to be glad/I’ve planted seeds of doubt in there/I’ve sown misdeeds I’ve reaped despair/Now I hold on to the thorns and bleed for this love I’ve found”).
A dampened drum thud anchors Please Don’t Tell Me Why, another number that flips the apparent message, initially about not wanting to face the dark facts (“Don’t wanna know/The trouble that surrounds/This happiness we’ve found/Don’t wanna see/The way our story ends… Don’t wanna know/The horror that surrounds/What sorrow paints the town/Can’t bear to see/The way we all pretend”) but then saying that facing the truth is how we confront the fears, as he says “Please don’t sell me lies”.
The bitterest song here is the chord tumbling McCartneyish Outside Looking In which opens with the lines “Some friends should come with an expiry date/They no longer spark joy but only aggravate/Where once you trusted now you hesitate/So sad/Good friends will wind up disappointing you/They’re no longer the people that you thought you knew/It makes you wonder if they ever were”, leaving your unable to trust.
That’s offset, however, by the reassuring optimism of the simple, hymnal strummed acoustic, strings caressed folksy Angel On My Shoulder who “whispers to me in the night/That everything’ll be alright/The angel at my window/Holds my hand/Understands my kind/Refills my glass of wine//Talks me down from sorrow/Helps to leave my fears behind”. Stephen Foster would have loved it.
Pizzicato strings open When Will The Morning Come? with its ringing guitars, cascading melody line, and the core sentiment “The door of my soul is open wide/To let the healing in”, complete with a la la la refrain and handclaps. Then, yet more tumbling chords with a steady folk-pop sway, Chris Kimsey on backing vocals, inspired by his childhood home in St Catharines, memories again inform Burgoyne Woods (“Back in high school/My friends and I would hang out in the smoking section/We would plan our weekend high and decide on our drug selection/On Friday nights we’d meet out on the tracks and we’d go trippin’”) along with the call of mortality and the passing of innocence (“Some are gone now/We look back on those days with many fond emotions/We were testing out our wings of fear and naive notions”).
It ends with the circling fingerpicked Must Be Something Wrong With Her, a closing how did I get to be so lucky love song to his wife that gently tugs the heart as he sings “Must be something wrong with her eyes/She says I’m lovely/Though the mirror says otherwise/Must be something wrong with her heart/Thinks the world of me even as I fall apart” and how “Somewhere in her childhood town/She dreamed a world where lost was found”.
Hangover Terrace is Sexsmith’s 18th studio album, and his sincerity and honesty are on full display, with his voice as inviting as it was on his 1995 self-titled major label debut. Thirty years on, his talent stands the test of time. As he says, he can do anything he damn well pleases. Luckily, he chooses to please us too.
Hangover Terrace (August 29th, 2025) Cooking Vinyl
