[.ca] Azure D Or

a very fine album:
I'll be short: I didn't know this band in the seventies, I only knew the bandname. One day, a few years ago, I bought this album together with Turn of the cards and found them both great. Afterwards I bought all the albums of this interesting band. Turn... and Azure... are quite different in style, but in both the songs are fantastic. Azure d'Or may be a little more 'pop', still the melodies, the arrangements and the voices are just perfect for me. I even find it excellent that this band managed to produce this different style too. For some fans it's difficult to change along with the artists, I think, and that could be the reason this album isn't appreciated like Ashes are Burning or A song for All Seasons. It's true that albums, which came later, were weaker, but this one stands as a rock. Don't hesitate to buy it, you won't be disappointed.

Sheen On:
It might be hard to do, but if you can separate David Hentschel's homogenizing production work from the songs themselves you will probably appreciate Renaissance's effort here quite a lot. What Hentschel did was to take out all of the bass and emaciate what could have been. . .well, very pleasingly plump. Hentschels's synthesized sheen renders the album virtually bloodless- - -play this back to back with TURN OF THE CARDS, for instance, and you'll hear what I mean. Yuk. As for the songs, however, no complaints. Renaissance was always a pop band at heart, admit it or not (ever heard 'Carpet Of The Sun'? 'I Think Of You'? 'The Vultures Fly High'? 'The Captive Heart?') and on AZURE D'OR they allow their pop sensibilities full reign. Particularly excellent are 'The Winter Tree' with its gorgeous melody line and chorus, and the melancholic 'Forever Changing'. None of the songs here are terrible by any means, even if Jon Camp cheesily advises that 'Only Angels Have Wings' (hey Jon, how do you explain Mothra?). It isn't as if every Renaissance album until AZURE D'OR were perfect. . .still, David Hentschel reduced what could have been sonically awesome into near-tepid and all-generic proportions. And I sure do miss the orchestra. And the grrahnd piahno. Come to think of it, I kind of miss Renaissance. Say, where's my copy of WIND AND WUTHERING? Hentschel produced that, too. Sounds like he just changed the vocalists and added a Mellotron or two.

Renaissance rules:
I can not beging to tell you what this band has meant to me over the years since I was introduced to them back in the early 70's. The hours I have spent listening to Annie Haslam's voice and the journeys it has taken me on. The pain it has soothed. The memories it has recalled. On this CD "Kalynda" reminds me of a woman I once knew in my youth who got me hooked on redheads. "Kalynda" reminds me of the love I had for her. The twinkle in her eyes and the times we shared. This is why this CD will always be special for me. Thank you Annie, John, and the rest of you. Do yourself a favor and take the journey with Renaissance.

Quite good, if a bit too electronic:
This album, indeed the last by the most popular lineup of Renaissance, tends to be underappreciated by most fans. In my opinion, it's full of strong songs. One reason some people don't like it is that it doesn't contain any long 10-minute epics like previous works. But some of these "epics", such as "Touching Once" or "The Sisters", seemed to be long just for the sake of being long. I liked the introduction of shorter songs. But the songwriting is stil rooted in the band's usual influences -- folk and folk-rock ("Friends", "Forever Changing", "Kalynda") or the classical/symphonic ("The Flood at Lyons", the rather baroque "Only Angels Have Wings"). Or, combining the two ("Golden Key","Jekyll and Hyde"). And the marvelous instrumental "The Discovery" proves that Renaissance could still hold its own with progressive rock peers like Yes. The melodies are marvelous, the lyrics are always interesting. and Annie Haslam's amazing five octave range floats above it all. What a lot of fans had problems with was David Hentschel's production. He has produced the band's previous album, "A Song for All Seasons", which gave the band a huge hit single with "Northern Lights". Hentchel, who also produced Genesis at that time, had enough pull to persuade the band to adopt an approach on which guitars, vocal harmonies and especially synthesizers were endlessly overdubbed. This made them sound quite a bit like Genesis. The "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink" style does make the album sound rather stiff and sterile. The songs don't seem to have much breathing room. Hentschel was able to balance better the use of electric guitars and synthetic orchestration with the band's usual acoustic approach on "Seasons". Once you get past that, though, you get to some really good songs. For those who find ten minute prog-rock epics a bit overwhelming or boring, "Azure d'Or" might be a good introduction to the marvelous sounds of Renaissance. For more seasoned fans, repeated listening will uncover the wonderful lyrics and melodies of these songs.

More commercial than its predecessors but still good:
This album was released in 1979 after "Song For All Seasons" the previous year. The strings are gone for the first time since "Prologue" in 1972. It relies more on synthesizers and more electric guitar than in previous albums. Shorter songs, aimed at a more commercial approach, but still quite melodic. "Friends" sounds like they were trying for "Northern Lights II". "Kalynda" is a beautiful melodic song, "Jekyll and Hyde" borrows a melody line in the middle of it from "Golden Thread" on the "Illusion" album from 1971. However, Renaissance had all different members at that time. "Forever Changing" has a folkish Joni Mitchell feel to it. Bass player Jon Camp sings lead on "Only Angels Have Wings" where the only other instrument is John Tout's synthesizers, creating an orchestral feel. But the synthesizers Tout was using, such as the Yamaha CS80, make it sound thin and artificial. A real orchestra would have done that song justice. "Azure d'Or" is not a bad album, but does lack the depth of previous Renaissance albums. The lack of an orchestra and the thin-sounding production dates the music. Jon Camp's bass sounds thin and Terry Sullivan's drums sound muffled. However, the ones to avoid are "Camera Camera" from 1981 and "Time Line" from 1983 as those albums leaned toward the synth-pop that was so prevalent at that time.

• Jekyll and Hyde
• Winter Tree
• Only Angels Have Wings
• Golden Key
• Forever Changing
• Secret Mission
• Kalynda (A Magical Isle)
• Discovery \oInstrumental\c
• Friends
• Flood at Lyons