IN THE BEGINNING

I remember this one. It seems that when Renaissance went on to work with the Sire label, their former one, Capitol, decided to cash in releasing a double LP simply putting together their first two Annie Haslam-era Renaissance albums. Therefore, the title was very misleading. I thought at the time that it might be a collection of Renaissance MK I stuff (something rare and hard to get at the time - imagine my disappointment!).

However, it would be a great buy for the newbie if three of the songs included were not edited. I guess as they were they wouldn´t fit in the 80 minute single CD time. So the only reason to get this record is ruined by that small detail. Of course the records themselves are brilliant (the second, Ashes Are Burning is definitly a 5 star affair - a classic - and one of my all time favorite prog records). But you better get them separately anyway, for it´s better to have the full version of those 3 songs.

So be warned: this is not either the real thing nor it is a colection of Jane Relf-era tunes. It is not even a ´proper´ compilation. I can´t give it a one star rating because of the very high quality of the material involved, but unless you like the cover, no reason at all to buy this one.