The heart of Forever Endeavour, is a batch of songs sparked by an unexpected health scare in the summer of 2011, and it's these tracks that give the album its sorrowful gravitas. The songs are different responses to the alarming chance that Sexsmith had less time left on earth than he'd assumed. "Deepens With Time" looks back affectingly at childhood memories that make us who we are but also "wound and leave us scarred". "Snake Road" and "If Only Avenue" use the same metaphor to gaze back on paths not taken – or choices not made – but the latter is mid-tempo and boomily regretful where the former is defiantly resolute in its horn-parping blues-rock strut. After the sugar high that was Long Player Late Bloomer, Forever Endeavour is all about slow-energy release, a collection that sits more seamlessly next to earlier Mitchell Froom productions like Other Songs (1997) and Whereabouts (1999). Melancholy without being maudlin, spare without being simplistic, Sexsmith's songs are invariably underpinned by an acceptance of life as it actually is.