RENAISSANCE : A SONG FOR ALL SEASONS

 

  1. Opening Out
  2. Day of the Dreamer
  3. Closer Than Yesterday
  4. Kindness (At the End)
  5. Back Home Once Again
  6. She Is Love
  7. Northern Lights
  8. A Song for All Seasons

Label : Sire Records

Release Year : 1978

Length : 44:36

Review (AllMusic) : The next to last album by Renaissance as a full-time, ongoing group, A Song for All Seasons was a courageous effort in its time, wearing its classically based progressive rock colors proudly on its sleeve amid the punk and new wave booms that were sweeping across the musical landscape. Vocalist Annie Haslam and pianist John Tout generated some memorably beautiful moments, ably supported by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor/arrangerHarry Rabinowitz. The first two tracks, "Opening Out" and "The Day of the Dreamer," ultimately promise a little more in the way of classically based lyricism than the album delivered; and the harder rocking moments are only fitfully interesting, despite the best efforts of bassist Jon Camp and guitarist Michael Dunford. But the pop tracks here, most notably "Northern Lights," "Back Home Once Again," and the acoustic guitar-driven "Closer Than Yesterday" are appealing on a level that was mostly new to the group. A few more numbers like those, interspersed with the more ambitious works on this album, and Renaissance might have found that wider following that always eluded them. But ultimately the album pulls in one or two too many directions at once, especially on the moody "She Is Love." For a finale, the title track, "A Song for All Seasons," (clocking in at almost 11 minutes) plunges us back into heavily orchestrated art-rock head-first and several yards deep, and succeeds better than most of the group's ambitious suites and song cycles of the second half of the '70s. The album has some gorgeous moments, but coming out at the end of the '70s, it was timed about as poorly as any LP ever issued, in terms of finding an audience - which doesn't stop modern audiences from savoring its appeal or those moments, three or four decades on.

Review (AvaxHome) : There were a lot of changes going on in the Renaissance camp when they entered Trident Studios in the winter of 1977 to record 'A Song for All Seasons'. They had left BTM in the wake of 'Novella' and signed with Warner Brothers Records, a move that along with a management change (Miles Copeland out, John Scher in) presumably gave them access both to better representation and better studio conditions. As part of this change the band were also persuaded to take on a producer in the form of David Hentschel. Hentschel was best known for transforming Elton John ('Goodbye Yellow Brick Road') into a mainstream superstar, as well as for overseeing the dismantling of the progressive version of Genesis. This could have spelled trouble for fans of the band's progressive music, but in the end resulted in arguably their best album yet. The group was also experimenting with electric guitar again, something that would become a major part of their sound as the decade wound to a close. Thankfully Michael Dunford's spacious acoustic guitar sound remained well-represented on this album, particularly on the shorter works like "Closer than Yesterday", "Back Home Once Again" and the album's mega-hit "Northern Lights". In a welcome change the band reverted to heavy use of synthesized orchestral arrangements on this record, something they would rapidly move back away from on subsequent albums but used quite effectively here. ELO conductor and keyboardist Louis Clark led the arrangements, most of which were actually performed by band keyboardist John Tout. And finally, this album marks the beginning of a shift away from lyricist Betty Thatcher in favor of collaborations between bassist Jon Camp and Dunford, as well a greater presence of the sort of extensive instrumental passages that marked the band's early records.