Renaissance: ‘Azure D’Or’ reviewed

Back in 1979, following on from the successful A Song for all Seasons and a UK top ten hit in Northen Lights, Renaissance seemed to have the world at their feet, a great relationship with their label Warner Bros and were coming off the back of their busiest touring years yet, and somehow, despite all this momentum, by the time Azure D’Or was released the band were unable to build on the foundations they’d laid down.

Punk had blown a hole in the side of the progressive rock mega-tankers, the labels had taken note; and as new wave, disco and electronic music were hitting the charts, bands like Renaissance, who didn’t have the reach of artists like Pink Floyd, Yes or Genesis to move beyond their prog roots and into ’80s mainstream success, got lost in the ether.

Critically regarded as their weakest album, Azure D’Or barely scraped the top 100 in the charts and led to the classic line-up splitting after a tour in 1980. Why? This is the question, and in this newly remastered three-disc edition complete with extensive sleeve notes and a replica concert brochure, featuring new stereo and 5.1 mixes by esteemed engineer/producer Steven W Taylor (Waterboys, Jethro Tull, Kate Bush, The Divine Comedy), the answer is not that obvious. In fact, despite the poor reception this album had, that doesn’t come through at all as every song on here could have fitted onto any Renaissance album from the past few years.

With the stable line up of Michael Dunford (guitar), Jon Camp (bass, vocals), Annie Haslam (vocals), Terry Sullivan (drums and percussion) and John Tout (keyboards), Azure D’Or carries on in the vein of previous albums with music by Michael Dunford and lyrical contributions from Betty Thatcher, complete with an eye-catching sleeve by Gered Mankowitz and sterling production by David Hentschel.

The biggest departure, which upset some of the fan base, was the shorter, tauter songwriting. Whereas previous albums had 11-minute-plus epics, the longest track on here is five minutes! The sleeve notes suggest that Warner Bros had intimated the band should write more ‘singles’ and, as the songwriters admit, the pervading musical influences of the time led to them deliberately writing shorter songs.

There was also a lack of orchestration, with strings switched out for synths. Haslam admits this was hard to get used to, but by 1979 synthesizers had come on in leaps and bounds, and using one synth for orchestration is a darn sight cheaper than hiring an orchestra for the day. This shift in sound, which upsets some fans, isn’t anywhere near as much as a radical departure from previous albums as you would think.

Listening to this album with the benefit of over 40 years hindsight (and in a new glorious 5.1 mix), there is nothing inherently wrong with this album. It is a logical musical progression for the band and shows them taking their trademark sound and attempting to evolve it, without losing any of their essence.

The single Jekyll and Hyde for instance, is pure classic Renaissance, Haslam’s vocals are sublime throughout (and, as is the case in boxes like this, the single mix is included so you can hear the subtle changes for the radio consumption) whilst Camp’s solo tour de force, the haunting Only Angels Have Wings, its title taken from a 1939 Cary Grant film, is an absolute masterpiece and one of the more affecting pieces on the album.

Pieces like the wonderful The Winter Tree, Secret Mission and the historical epic The Flood at Lyons all ooze the class and quality you would expect from Renaissance, and the 5.1 mix of this album by Steven W Taylor brings his musical ear and years of experience on the two new mixes here.

The 2022 new stereo mix tidies up the original and unlike so many ‘remixes’, you can tell the difference. His sympathetic approach to the source material enhances the sound and brings elements of the music to the fore, and on his 5.1 mix, the room fills with the warmth and energy of the original album.

After the album’s relative failure, with consumers’ tastes and record label focus moving on from bands like Renaissance, the band fell out of fashion and lost their way. Tout and Sullivan jumped ship, leading to a lean 1980s with Camp leaving in 1985 and Dunford and Haslam bravely soldiering on until there was a Renaissance renaissance in 1998 with the studio album Tuscany re-uniting Haslam, Dunford, Sullivan and Tout.

This remaster finally reclaims Azure D’Or as the lost gem in the band’s back catalogue, making this album ripe for reappraisal so it can sit on equal terms in the pantheon of classic ’70s Renaissance albums.