A Song For All Seasons - RENAISSANCE***

Opening Out/Day Of The Dreamer/Closer Than Yesterday/Kindness (At The End)/Back Home Once Again/She Is Love/Northern Lights/A Song For All Seasons

Renaissance were a British progressive band that received some critical acclaim but relatively little commercial success. A Song For All Seasons features their only UK top ten hit Northern Lights. (US:58 UK:35)

“Renaissance's last great album and an overlooked gem. The music is similar to previous releases; quite varied but often melodic and highly singable progressive rock with lush orchestral and symphonic arrangements. However, here the music is more rock-based, even featuring electric guitars, which is a rarity with the band.”

“A Song For All Seasons is the ultimate Renaissance album, the one they had been pointing to for almost a decade. Here they shed some of the preciousness that restricted most of their previous works, adding some electronics while continuing to embrace the orchestral backing. They delivered a pop sensibility to several tunes, resulting in an incredible achievement for symphonic prog, since almost all their contemporaries had sold out. Here was Renaissance producing the most convincing album of their career.”

“A good, albeit slightly uneven, record that is the last Renaissance album I'm willing to recommend to the general fan of progressive rock. This doesn't imply that I'd place this album alongside their classics; what we have here is a good record from a great band that nicely holds its place in their discography without really standing out.”

“Renaissance were one of the few bands from the early '70s that actually got better as they went along. Thankfully they keep the great vocals of Annie Haslam for all but a few of the tracks, and they also whip up some good folky prog that even an orchestra can't mess up.”

“In their prime, Renaissance were a band who mixed quite unlikely ideals - acoustic pop and classical orchestration - into songs that were amazingly powerful, beautiful and mysterious. However, with the coming of the punk revolution, delicate romanticism was completely out of favour with the public, and Renaissance showed clear signs of decline. They were able to write beautifully memorable melodies, but on A Song for All Seasons they seldom do this, sounding strangely mechanical, something one would not expect for a band that was so organic a few years back.”