Canada’s Royal Wood, who in these last ten years has made a name for himself in cabaret pop, switches gears on his sixth release for a more rock-oriented effort. Gone are the ragtime flourishes that were once his signature. Opting for a more direct approach, Wood focuses more on grooves than he does atmosphere, placing emphasis on the rhythm section and dabbling a bit more with drum loops and samples. Still present (and always the centerpiece) is his magnificent croon, delivered with restraint and yet rich enough to give each of these tunes a dusky shading. Wood’s previous albums were works that featured primarily twilit numbers, with songs of emotional longing and heartache. Wood shifts his worldview into the sunlight and trades in his languorous lamentations for an increase in bpms. The lean, cool beats of “Not Giving Up” sparkle with his usual instrumentation of piano and guitar, the chorus wallpapered with a small but sinewy string-section and the sound of a gong ringing through the mix. “I Want Your Love” features the low buzz of electric guitar and some soft touches of synth-pop to round out the edges; it’s a bolder move away from his noir-lush jazz-pop that put him on the radar of Toronto’s music scene a decade back. If you still pine for the late-night lugubrious pop of his previous days, you’ll find them in “Will We Ever Learn” and “I’ll Be Gone”, both numbers featuring a caramel-wrap of orchestral arrangements that lavishes upon the singer’s affecting vocals rather sweetly and thick. No matter what musical element he is in, Royal Wood imparts his songwriting with the same qualities evocative of his very name: lustre and class.

Full of class, charm and a gentleman’s demeanour, Royal Wood’s We Were Born to Glory holds an old time vibe that showcases the beautiful quality of piano-based music and the simple pleasure of listening to a pure, untouched vocal performance. A more mature Pop sound, Royal Wood brings a sense of wisdom and a well-executed musical compilation that suggests he is not only capable of playing his instrument(s), but also excels at combining melodies, harmonies and vocal lines into something of substance.

This album is jam-packed with musical gems. While already possessing a natural talent for the piano, Royal Wood continues to push his musical ability by adding layers of harmonies, rhythmic drumming and strings, such as heard in “I’ll be Gone.” And while this album does hold a more mature sound, it’s not to say that it doesn’t also hold a sense of youthful fun. For example, listening to “I Need You Now” you can hear the upbeat drums and the catchy hook of “Sha-la-la-la” that brings the image of a sunny day and a walk in the park. The emotional and musical variation in this album is amazing. When you listen to “Release Me,” a simple song with mostly vocals and piano, you hear the bare-bones of what it means to be a musician – they feel for a living, and you feel that in this song.

Based out of Toronto, Royal Wood’s We Were Born to Glory is an album that any individual who appreciates real talent should possess and devour.

Forget what you thought you knew about Royal Wood.

The dapper man loses much of his characteristic sombreness and adds flourishes of hope and swagger to his latest album, We Were Born To Glory.

The snappy 13-song collection of pop-rock numbers feels brasher and brighter than any of his previous five efforts, including 2010’s The Waiting, which earned him a Juno nomination for Songwriter of the Year. Instead of just crooning about the concept of love, he sings about getting naked — on sexually charged ’70s-flavoured tunes such as “I Want Your Love” and “I Need You Now.” This transition seems to be paying off — We Were Born To Glory entered the Canadian charts at No. 23 in July, his highest debut to date.

Sophisticated, smart, and catchy as all-get-out, Royal Wood has put together his most elegant album with We Were Born To Glory.  Always adept at crafting a moving melody, Wood scores big with a bunch of high-end, hook-heavy and up-tempo gems at the start of the disc, before moving into some moving, and glossy ballads.  Lead track The Thick Of It sets the tone, showcasing his sweet harmonies and joyous pop moves, including a Byrds guitar riff and even a whistled solo.The hits keep coming, with the urgent The Fire Did Go driving along with a desperate drum beat, Wood wondering how to get back to the spark at the start of a love.  Chiming piano introduces Not Giving Up, Wood pledging to fight the good fight, “With every flame of my desire/I’m not giving up on you.”  It’s all radiant, with the glory of Rufus Wainwright and the emotional depth of Ron Sexsmith.  Our boy has the voice, too.  Listen to string ballad Will We Ever Learn, bound to melt the hardest heart.

On his last record, 2010’s The Waiting, Royal Wood was in a considerably more contemplative mood when compared to his newest masterpiece We Were Born To Glory. These 13 tracks boast a considerably more upbeat pop edge. Wood wears the suit well (no pun intended), indulging his love of pop, embellishing his songs with lush strings, piano, guitar and more. We Were Born To Glory will quite possibly be one of the catchiest, well thought-out pop records to emerge from Canada this year. Get on this train now.

Every inch a king…. The result is We Were Born to Glory is (Royal’s) most upbeat and cohesive album to date.

The music industry is a business, with a focus on profitability, but the real test of a musician isn’t how many records they sell, or how well their songs do on radio. It’s whether they keep making good music. Wood’s discography, from his 2003 debut The Milkweed EP   to We Were Born to Glory, is a brilliant musical reflection on the human experience.

Wood is on the launching pad, and with this new album, his career is going to take off. Royal Wood has arrived.

I’ve always thought of Royal Wood’s dapper and pretty balladry as something for the dolls, less for the guys. His new album feels different. There’s a bit more charge to his trim song-craft – one might even say punch. The Thick of It strums like a missing Traveling Wilbury; Hard Thing to Find is a similar thing, but bigger with horns. Soothing melodies are in a grouping with those of Ryan Adams and Ron Sexsmith. Lyrically, the Toronto crooner is thoughtfully motivated, concerned with doubt and renewal. The latter thrust prevails: We are all bound for glory, if we could just get out of our own way.

The always-elegant Royal Wood loosens his collar on his fourth album, a selection of songs that are more playful and pop-oriented than his previous releases. You’ll even catch the man whistling once in a while. Though the Toronto, ON-based singer-songwriter’s lyrical content is as starry-eyed as ever, catchy choruses abound this time around. Building on the sound he tried out on 2010′s The Waiting, the arrangements on his newest collection ― guitars, drums, piano and strings ― give Wood’s love songs a grandiosity worthy of their emotional tenor. Though the sweeping strings can be overpowering during some of the quieter moments, they offer an emotional boost to bolder numbers like “Not Giving Up” and “Always Will.” More enjoyable still is the sassy, new wave-inspired synthesizer in songs like “I Want Your Love” and “When The Sun Comes Up.” It’s a creative departure that fits Wood’s songwriting style and reveals a spark of the sharp wit behind the sophisticated suit and tie.

We Were Born To Glory shows that Wood has a knack for writing great pop songs. With its lilting keyboard, ‘When The Sun Comes Up’ almost sounds like it could be a Cars song. The upbeat ‘The Fire Did Go’ has a sing-a-long chorus that will get stuck in your head for days. While the album does spend much of its time in pop-rock territory, Wood closes it out with the almost orchestral ‘The Glory’, a gorgeous, uplifting song. Wood has crafted a sterling collection of songs that finds him comfortably straddling the line between balladeer and popsmith, with ease.

Toronto-based, multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter Royal Wood has everything it takes to become a big-time recording star. Co-produced by Wood and Dean Drouillard, his third release We Were Born to Glory is more upbeat than his previous ballad-drenched The Waiting. It advances (Royal’s) surefire road to stardom with great songs, vocals, arrangements and production.

If you’re looking for well-crafted, smart pop songs with ample hooks you could do a hell of a lot worse than Peterborough-native Royal Wood.  On July 10th Wood releases his highly-anticipated new full length We Were Born To Glory. The piano is Wood’s bread and butter.  It blends perfectly with handclaps to produce a delicious groove on “I Want Your Love”.  When combined with strings, like on “The Glory”, the result is extraordinarily elegant. A hint of twang seeps onto several tracks.  It gives cuts like “The Fire Did Go” a Justin Townes Earle quality.  The album opener, the whistle-laden “The Thick Of It”, heaves from side-to-side creating a catchy bounce.

We Were Born to Glory sounds like a record that will draw in new fans. Wood’s pure pop sensibility, with every instrument and element in the right place at all times, continues to develop nicely, and his folk foundation oscillates between pop and new wave in a good way (think of a Ric Ocasek/Ron Sexsmith hybrid that somehow works).

Royal Wood has also been blessed with a ridiculously clear voice. It’s all welcome from this stone cold charmer.

I am, for the most part, bored with the whole Singer-Songwriter genre.  Likewise, I don’t often find myself impressed with what’s offered on Maple Music’s imprint.  And Royal Wood, this week’s person-of-interest kind of reminds me in tone and style of Paul McCartney, the Beatle I think the least deserving of success and adulation.

So you would think that, logically, I would hate the Hell out of Royal Wood’s ‘We Were Born to Glory’.  Surprisingly, the exact opposite is true.  I am thoroughly enjoying this album, because its music is rife with a sincerity I haven’t heard out of McCartney since he was in Wings.  It breathes refreshing energy into a musical style that’s underplayed in this day and age, and it does so without pandering or pretense.

The songs here have a folksy romanticism to them, an optimism that’s not overly cloying and a sense of lyrical timing and poetry that is too good to be fakedand neither ironic, sarcastic nor smug, as the case so often is with much of the Coffee-House Hipster music scene this album will inevitably fall into.