Album Rating: 3.5

@Twig;

According to me, they tried to reach a wider audience from 1979 to the 90's, where they ''modernized'' the use of the keyboards, shortened the songs and adopted a mid to up tempo patterns to the risk of losing their good old devoted fans. Did they gain a respectable amount of new listeners? Good question. My guess is not really. Band probably tried hard but I think they mostly lost their way on the run. As we know it, the 80's represent the ruthless dark age of prog, and Renaissance are no exception. Their very last album shows the signs of their sounding of their heydays (the 70's stuff). That return in style would explain the intention of the band to rejoin their good old fans again.

Album Rating: 3.5

@ Twig

I agree with Jethro. They failed that objective. We were in the 80's where prog had very few space to develop. So they made what many other prog bands did, they turned to pop, maybe enthusiastic by their biggest sucess, their single “Northern Lights” of this album. Their final album in the 70's, "Azure D'Or" (my next review), despite is a popish album, is still a nice album. But their two albums of the 80's are weaker and then they lose their main reference, Haslam on their two next albums in the 90's. Haslam return with their last album in the 90's, another weak one. It seems that was only in this century that they return with two nice albums "Tuscany" and specially "Grandine Il Vento". On this last, they return with epic tracks. But I don't know these albums yet.

Digging: Mike Oldfield - Return to Ommadawn

"the 80's represent the ruthless dark age of prog" -- That is a great way to say it.

Genesis made the transition to pop-rock in the 80s. She has such a beautiful voice I thought maybe Renaissance did too, but I see this was not the case. Thanks guys!

Album Rating: 3.5

@Twig;

Yeah, Genesis has successfully passed through the eighties because they took the precaution to keep injecting a minimum of prog elements into each and every albums they released in their pop-rock era. There are not a lot of classic prog bands from the 70's that went as commercially successful as Genesis. Band managed to keep the majority of their good old fanbase and increased it with some pop-rockers over time. King Crimson, Rush, Yes and Jethro Tull are some other bands that more or less comfortably passed through the 80s and onwards with respectable material and a renewed fanbase. Unfortunately, most of the bands of the 70's haven't survived to the new wave and the punk virage of the 80's.

About Renaissance, I haven't listened to everything they did passed the 70's, but one thing is sure, despite all the low ratings of the 80's and everything after, I think they have followers just because of the beautiful voice of Annie and her high capacity. But musically, their change of direction was not favorable to them, it seems. So, to the big pleasure of their fans, they returned to their initial 70's sounding with their last album, Grandine Il Vento.

@e21;

I bumped up Grandine Il Vento to a 3.5/5, and I might go for a 4/5, it's that good. I probably like that one more than Novella. Also, there are two Renaissance' albums missing to the data base. ''The Other Woman'' from 1995, and ''Songs From Renaissance Days'' from 1997. Their ratings are really not high for both albums, so I'm not hurry to add them in their main page.

Here is a link for Grandine Il Vento, or Symphony of Light, if you will (also found on Spotify);

https://musicmp3.ru/artist_renaissance__album_symphony-of-light.html

Album Rating: 3.5

@ Twig

Once more I agree with Jethro. Very few prog bands escaped unscathed in the 80's. Even some of the bands mentioned by him suffered from those times, changing the direction of their music, making a iatus in time or simply disappearing. I really think Genesis was really the only sucessful case.

Album Rating: 3.5

@ Jethro

I really read something very positive about "Grandine Il Vento" on Progarchives, sometime ago, but I never paid much attention to it. So, it seems that I was wrong. As we have the same tastes, I presume that it must be a great album. A 4.00, is really impressive and as you said that it can be even better than "Novella", is really amazing. Definitely, I need to check it.

Thanks for the link my friend.

Album Rating: 3.5

You're welcome, man. I'm not sure that Grandine Il Vento is better than Novella. I always considered Novella as a kinda single epic suite track mixed of classical and folk elements. All its parts have grandiose passages, and are really melodious. Grandine Il Vento tends to be more of a folk rock affair, scattered with symphonic tendancies (''Symphony of Light'' which contains a nod and a wink to Genesis, the title track is another epic song inspired by good old Renaissance, and ''The Mystic and the Muse'' which is up there with the band's classics). The folkish and beautiful ''Air of Drama'' could be a solid song of Mostly Autumn, and the melodic ''Blood Silver Like Moonlight'' is really moving. ''Waterfall'' is an ok ballad, but I would put it as the closer of the album because it affects the flow. The highlights shine through some other songs that are only decent, so you can detect easily the great ones from the ok ones.

Album Rating: 3.5

Ok, man. It seems we have a kind of a mix of both worlds, prog and pop. But by what you said about the highlights of the album, it seems to be a very interesting album. I must check it, definitely.

Once again, thanks dude.

album looks cute

Album Rating: 3.5

Yeah, you can say that.