Album – A Good Enough Day – Royal Wood

Posted by admin on January 31st, 2007

2007 is really starting to hot up, with some incredible releases from around the world, and indeed right on my doorstep here in Canada. Royal Wood is indeed Canadian, from not too far away in Toronto. Again the CBC Radio 3 podcast is proving to be an absolute goldmine of new talent. I only had to listen to a few seconds to be totally captivated and knew this was going to be an absolute shoe in for review. I’ve sat on the album for a few weeks and every time I listen, I find something more to like.

With 12 tracks on the album, this is another that opens with a real strong track, in this case the title track “A Good Enough Day”, which is a real sound bite of a track at a tad over a minute, but you know just what the rest of the album is going to bring. “Juliet” is the track that follows and is just beautiful. It reminds me very much of that other great Canadian artist, Ron Sexsmith, but with much smoother vocals. Royal Wood has a very distinctive style and it’s prevalent throughout the album. It’s so nice to see a return to good old fashioned song writing, with wonderful lyrics and melodies. “A Mirror Without” is another example of this.

Of all the tracks on the album, it’s only “Siren” that I don’t particularly care for. It’s a track that just has a very weird feeling to it. It evokes in my minds eye the image of some kind of demented clown. “About You” is a very interesting track that would have been great with some kind of subtle choir arrangement. Just as we lead in with the shortest track on the album, we lead out with the longest track at a tad over 8 and a half minutes and it finishes the album perfectly. But all is not as it seems, but I’ll leave that for you to discover.

Royal Wood may be an unusual name, but it’s certainly one worth keeping an eye on. Although most of his gigs appear to be in and around Toronto, I’ll certainly try to get to a gig should he appear in the Ottawa area.

Conclusion : Yet another great album for 2007 and a real benchmark for other independent artists.

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