Renaissance - 2025 - Opening Out [The Albums 1977-1979]

(131:00; Esoteric)

Following on from the wonderful ‘Running Hard - The Albums 1974-1976’ set we now have the next batch from the classic Renaissance line-up, which gave us ‘Novella’, ‘A Song For All Seasons’ and ‘Azure D’or’. Vocalist Annie Haslam, Michael Dunford (acoustic guitars), John Tout (keyboards, vocals), Jon Camp (bass, vocals) and Terry Sullivan (drums, percussion) were on a very successful run at the time, both in the States and the UK, and in many ways this is one of the most complete ways of hearing the band, although musically I do believe the earlier set to be superior. On ‘A Song For All Seasons’ we had the hit single “Northern Lights” (which is not about the aurora borealis, but is actually about the lights of Bolton), but with ‘Azure D’Or’ the band were running out of money so used synthesisers instead of an orchestra, and that combined with shorter material was their death knell as many fans left at that point and although the band has continued on and off since their demise in the Eighties, there have only been two studio albums in the last forty years compared with 11 between 1969 and 1983  with Annie the only person still involved with the band, and Terry Sullivan now the only other surviving musician with the others having passed away.

While this line-up was not the original, for me and many others it is viewed as the “classic” Renaissance, as lyrically and musically they were like no-one else, and in Annie they had one of the most amazing singers of all time. This release comes with just one additional bonus cut, but there is an excellent and detailed booklet containing interesting essays and interviews with plenty of photographs, making this a set well worth investigating.  

Kev Rowland, October 2025

Links:
https://renaissancetouring.com/
https://www.esotericrecordings.com/