NOVELLA

Renaissance were able to squeeze four studio albums out of the style which they established on Ashes Are Burning, and which had stayed strong throughout Turn of the Cards and Scheherazade. Novella is the fourth album before A Song For All Seasons would herald a stylistic shift back towards shorter songs, and arose in somewhat murky circumstances as the result of them needing to shift record company for the UK release, as a result of BTM records going bust in 1976.

It feels like the production is a little off this time around too - the Esoteric reissue significant improves this, and made it more possible for me to appreciate the album's depths, but it feels like the longest epic on the album - Can You Hear Me? - should really be as powerful as Ashes Are Burning or Song of Scheherazade, and it has all the right ingredients, but the production doesn't quite give it the last bit of sparkle it should have.

The subdued production continues into The Sisters, though it is at least suitable to that melancholic, wistful track. Between that and the autumnal cover art, I can't help but think of this album as, when it's at its best, a sort of companion piece to Wind and Wuthering by Genesis - both albums have the same sort of chilly, autumnal feel to them.

The second side leads off with Midas Man, with includes synthesiser used a bit more prominently than on previous Renaissance releases; the band would use synths live when they were performing without the benefit of an orchestra, but their inclusion here feels like a new development. The other side 2 songs feel like more traditional Renaissance pieces.

Overall, Novella gives a sense of Renaissance's schtick still holding strong, but beginning to waver, though how much of this is due to the slightly off production is hard to say - certainly, several pieces from the album became concert mainstays going forwards. Recommended, but not recommended over the preceding four albums.

The Esoteric reissue of this also includes the full Royal Albert Hall concert from 1977 (previously put out as a King Biscuit Flower Hour release), which makes the overall package somewhat more tempting. My star rating is, as always with these things, based solely on the album itself, but tack on an extra half star for the purposes of the Esoteric release, since the inclusion of that extra certainly makes it a more attractive package.