AZURE D'OR

The most different album done by the classic Renaissance line up of the seventies. When it came out in 1979 I was quite disappointed: gone were the orchestrations and the long epic compositions. On the other hand the electronic instrumentation got bigger to the point of sometimes almost drowning Annie Haslam´s vocals. Not up to anyone´s expectation after the very fine Song For All Seasons.

Still, it is the classic Renaissance and I must say I enjoy this album much more now than at the time. Well, how could I have guessed then that this band would release such new wave crap like Camera Camera in the next years? At least on Azure D´or the songs are good, the musicianship is awesome and the sound is still very much progressive. It was also clear that bassist Jon Camp was about to take charge of the musical direction (a bad move as future works would show, but did not much harm here). His vocal performance on Only Angels Have Wings is one of his finest. He also wrote the best cut in the whole album, Kalinda, a beautiful ballad like the old days.

There are some different songs, like the interesting instrumental track The Discovery. But the orchestra is sorely missing on some more prog tunes like Turn Of The Key or The Flood Of Lyons. Fortunately, nothing disastrous. A minor classic Renaisance record, but still classic Renaissance. And I´d rather hear it to Novella nowadays. 3,5 stars.