A SONG FOR ALL SEASONS

This is the last Renaissance album to contain the classic sound of their previous albums. The late 70s found record companies pushing artists to produce more hits and to adapt to the new sounds that were coming out on the radio (whether punk, disco, or new wave). While Renaissance would do this on their next album (Azure D'Or), A Song for All Seasons avoids such temptations, but it is still clear that they have compromised, mainly by mixing shorter more catchy songs among their longer extended compositions. The result is an album that is both is a mix of Novella (and its extended symphonic approach), and of a more 70s-contemporary AOR approach with a bunch of four-minute tunes meant to please the record company execs. The structure is in the form of a sandwich. The good (extended) compositions come at the beginning, and end, of the album, with the shorter AOR pieces in the middle. Of course, the three best tracks are the ones in the former mode. These are "Opening Out", "Day of the Dreamer" and the title track "A Song for All Seasons", which although only three tracks they take up more than half of the album (since these are the longer tunes). These are the tracks that make the album worth getting. Of the middle/shorter tracks, I find only "Northern Lights" does anything for me. The other songs are not bad though - nothing off-putting, just too fluffy and mainstream-AOR sounding for my taste (unlike later albums like Camera Camera and Timeline, which contain some actually bad songs). I give this album 6.4 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to mid 3 PA stars.

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