LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL

Renaissance fans swear by this live album, but I'd previously found it rather unconvincing. I had thought there were issues with the recording quality, but I can only assume this was a shortcoming of the rather old CD release I had heard, because on the Esoteric remaster it sounds absolutely marvellous.

The material here is often quite close to the studio versions - a strong accomplishment given the intricacy of some of the songs here - but there's some departures. Ashes Are Burning, by this point, had bloated into a 20 minute plus affair (including a Jon Camp bass solo), and so it and Song of Scheherazade took up a side each of the original vinyl release.

If you are a major fan of Renaissance and love all the albums the songs here are derived from (Prologue, Ashes are Burning, Turn of the Cards and Scheherazade), you'd probably really enjoy this album, but if you like them that much you don't need a review site to tell you whether or not to pick up a release.

I particularly recommend the Esoteric rerelease of this, because it restores Kiev to the running order and also includes a BBC In Concert appearance from the band from 1976.