When Ron Sexsmith performed in local band Over The Rhine's annual Christmas show at the Taft Theatre in December, he was doing the folksinger thing — a solo set, just he and his guitar, songs stripped bare.

        Saturday the Canadian singer-songwriter returned to Cincinnati, appearing at Top Cat's in Corryville with a three-man band.

        The band dressed up Mr. Sexsmith's songs with low-key pop arrangements, but the folksinger vibe from the Taft remained: For 90 minutes the crowd listened quietly and intently to each of the singer's melancholy tunes.

        Mr. Sexsmith's music naturally attracts such sober audience reaction. In fact, he didn't even need a band. His set at the Taft was much shorter but also much stronger. His greatest strength is his lyric writing, and those words get through with a band or without.

        His second greatest strength is concocting clever little minor-chord-heavy melodies in the Ray Davies tradition. The melodies shined through at the Taft, when Mr. Sexsmith had only his voice and guitar. All the band did Saturday was follow the course, adding nothing. No revamped structures, no virtuoso musicianship — the most exciting player on stage was the singer, who broke off a decent electric guitar solo on “Secret Heart.”

        The band's strategy to make things interesting seemed to be shuffling instruments and lineups. Bassist Maury Lafoy and guitarist Tim Bovaconti cleared the stage for a couple tunes when drummer Don Kerr played cello. Mr. Sexsmith switched between guitar and keyboards throughout the night, but it didn't matter. The melancholy lyrics and the clever melodies kept coming.

        While those are his strengths, they're not strong enough to lift him from the ranks of a singer-songwriter with a cult following. If he's trying to make it as a bandleader, his chances are even more slight.

        Also on the bill was Irish singer Emmett Tinley, leader of the band the Prayer Boat. The rest of the band was back in Dublin, so Mr. Tinley did a solo set of material even more somber in nature than Mr. Sexsmith's. Talk about truth in advertising — one of his tunes began with the line: “There's no sadder song than this one.”

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