TIME-LINE

The three faces on the album's cover seem to be asking "Hey chap, are you really sure that you want to buy this album? Don't do it!" I'd never thought possible that Renaissance were able to make anything worse than Camera Camera.

"Flight" is not very bad, but why is Annie Haslam singing on the pitch of Barry White? Has she lost her 5th octave?

Who are the "Missing Persons"? Jon Tout, maybe? This song starts midway between the Police and the Clash before entering a chorus with a ridicoulous bass line. The way the song fades out is ridicoulous as well.

"Chagrin Boulevard" starts with a guitar solo that goes nowhere and doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the song. There's a few of the old Renaissance until the chorus that's probably the poorest thing that I've heard from this band until now. Camel's "No Easy Answer" is a masterpiece compared to this stuff.

"Richard the IX"...they should have stopped at the VIII. A very poor electro-pop song. It could have been a summer's hit if released 10 years before by ABBA. Now it's also out of time.

"Entertainer" sounds like Lene Lovich but without her artsy vocalisms. If I think to what Annie Haslam was capable of...not the worst track of the album. At least this is listenable and Annie places a couple of "acuto" at the end.

The title of the following track says everything. After an opening on Kraftwrek's style that doesn't have anything to do with Renaissance but it's not bad, they start singing and this is the lowest moment of the album and probably of their whole career.

"Majik" is not totally bad. Not a good reason to buy this disc, anyway.

On "Distant Horizons" we can hear Jon Camp playing a good bass. The melody is quite poor but this could be an average Kayak's song. One of the few rare things that may be saved.

After all this stuff, why not a bit of disco-funky? Let Annie sing like Blondie on a funky base with some brasses behind and it's done. Very, very bad. If I have to listen to this stuff I prefer looking to Motown artists.

"Auto-Tech" could be nice if performed by the DEVO. There's just a short interlude with traces of symphonic prog. I think to songs like Mother Russia or Ashes Are Burning, how can a band go so low ? The only good thing is that after this album they stopped for 12 years. I don't know the album released in 1995, but looking at PA ratings it doesn't seem to be too much different from this one so I don't think I'll purchase it. It means that I won't review ALL the Renaissance's studio albums.

Stay away from this one.