LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL WITH THE ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA PART 2

Buyer beware: for some unaccountable reason, the good folks at the King Biscuit Flower Hour decided that rather than putting the Royal Albert Hall show out as a 2CD package (outside of a release in Japan where they did just that), they'd split it into two distinct releases, with the latter one completely pointlessly padded out with extra material. (Namely, a performance of Prologue from a 1979 concert - redundant because an all-orchestral version of Prologue begins the proceedings in the Royal Albert Hall concert itself - and a 10 minute studio track from 1983, You, from when the band was close to running out of steam entirely and needing to go into hibernation.)

It should also be noted that Esoteric, as part of their excellent series of Renaissance reissues, has included the whole Royal Albert Show as bonus discs on their release of Novella. As such, there is little need to get the separate release of the show if you have that or are planning to get it.

So, with that point understood, how is it? Well, essentially it's Renaissance working with a top-tier orchestra, so you know it's going to be good - with much of their material already optimised for performance with an orchestra anyway, they can get out there and do what they do best and trust the Royal Philharmonic to back them up to perfection. Unfortunately, the recording quality is not what it could be, with some sections having a sort of fuzzy sound quality to them, and at points there's a background hum which doesn't seem to have been tackled. In essence, it's a five-star performance let down by three-star technology - call it four stars as a compromise.

I'm going to set aside the performance of Prologue and You here because they are essentially bonus tracks unrelated to the original performance. This half of the concert has somewhat more in the way of new tracks not represented on previous Renaissance live releases, with Midas Man and Touching Once (Is So Hard To Keep) from Novella sitting comfortably alongside better-established material.

It is also distinguished by a nearly half-hour version of Ashes Are Burning, which includes an extensive improvisational section which strays into being a bit overly self-indulgent - improvised jams were never Renaissance's strong suit and whilst it is interesting to hear them stretch themselves in this manner, it's perhaps for the best they saved it for the album closer; I mind the improv section far less considering that it's spicing up a track which had been such a staple of their live show, and the way the band emerge from the depths of improv limbo to bring about a cataclysmic ten minute finale to the song raises goosebumps.