Far removed from the wispy, quirky, homemade folk-pop of Jim Guthrie's first two solo records, Now, More Than Ever finds the Canadian singer-songwriter in command of a small orchestra of stringed acoustic instruments, guiding them through passages of astonishing authority and character. It's a lush, gorgeous record, but it's also small and still, full of unassuming first-person monologues like the album opener, "Problem With Solutions," where Guthrie describes the life of a gentle cynic trying to better himself. The marriage of Guthrie's meekness and his rich arrangements creates a subtle, affecting tension, similar to the work of Nick Drake—only Guthrie has traveled in an opposite musical direction from Drake, making his Bryter Layter after nearly five years' worth of Pink Moons.
Now, More Than Ever's "All Gone" encapsulates what the record does so well. It's casually sensational, dropping in stages from a complex opening—pinging guitars, hovering strings, and an abstract call-and-response vocal line—to a forlorn, intimate chorus, featuring the song's third significant melodic change. Guthrie drops little philosophical nuggets along the way ("The thief needs the diamond / like the diamond needs the thief"), all with the reserved, attention-grabbing quality of a respectful "ahem."
The album shares some of the sophisticated "adultness" of late-'70s soft rock (the more pensive variety, like Steely Dan and The Alan Parsons Project), as well as some of the ethereal sorrow of cult mopes like Mark Kozelek and Idaho's Jeff Martin. It also borrows some wide-eyed wit from Brian Wilson and They Might Be Giants, and some compositional vigor from avant-garde classical composers like Steve Reich. It's the work of a man playing with a set of well-worn Tinkertoys, and using the crudely elegant materials to fashion songs like the six-minute "Lovers Do," where the plainspoken description of an everyday spat flows into swooping instrumentation, crafting an epic of minutiae.