Listen to Donovan Woods’ eighth album and you immediately understand how the Ontario raconteur became an in-demand writer for major folk and country artists on both sides of the border. Woods has a gift for building entire narrative universes in a single couplet: When he sings about being “on the Peace Bridge in a Kia Soul” and “leaving Buffalo with a cold sore” (on the finger-picked lullaby “It’s Been Like That for a While”), you feel like you’re right there next to him in the passenger seat, enduring another agonisingly long wait at the Canada/US border. He writes with the sort of specificity where you can practically plot his songs on a mapping app—“116 West Main, Durham, NC” references the bookstore actually housed at that address, while “Back for the Funeral” is a poignant portrait of old friends reunited by a moment of shared grief in a shopping mall in Burlington, Ontario. But Woods finds his richest material in the mundane moments and nonverbal interactions that define long-term relationships between people who are trying to avoid the moment where familiarity breeds contempt. Where the quietly resplendent “Rosemary” finds two partners at an impasse (“Darling, are we okay yet?” Woods pleads), the delicate Madi Diaz duet “When Our Friends Come Over” sees them rekindle the flame after an at-home gathering reminds them how “it’s nice to see ourselves through someone else’s eyes”. But while acoustic serenades remain Woods’ natural habitat, his songs also project a heartland-rock expanse—complete with windswept strings and wandering saxophones—that’s as vividly detailed as his storytelling.