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Not sure whether it's a wise move making my debut here with writing something positive about this record, but I think it's big fun actually and one of the most underrated albums. Much has been written about them trying to become commercial and even "new wave", but the truth is that if they tried this they failed miserably, at the same time pissing off much of their old fan base. It was probably the wrong album at the wrong time, but my take on it is very different.

I appreciate that they tried out something new and that they took a risk here. I even like the photo, which probably proves my bad taste. I find the album very fresh actually, and it's full of surprises. True, some of the material is pretty straightforward and can't really be called "prog", and one couldn't accuse them of following any consistent direction here, but I actually like the fact that every song is quite different from every other. There are some really excellent and at times extreme vocals here (Annie does other things than "beautiful & epic" here, which may have shocked some), good and dominant bass playing, some good melodies, some of rather mellow and some of rather determined character, some more Eastern influence. The rhythm section in several songs is harder and more "driving" than on other Renaissance albums. My favourite is Tyrant-tula, which is started off by a good guitar riff, has some quite "physical" parts, a quite exciting keyboard solo and some unexpected turns (leading into something of a dead end but that's part of the fun).

I don't mind the 80s keyboards, by the way, and quite a range of sounds and styles is used there, too (including some old school Renaissance piano). Actually, the whole "70s prog band goes 80s commercial" thing fascinates me to some extent; trying to make things a bit slimmer and straighter wasn't too wrong for some. In some cases there are interesting results like here, where the band keeps up their creativity (I think there's more creativity in this one than in a number of their predecessors actually) and it turns out that they put too many ideas in an album to be really commercial.

One can find things to criticise about this, not every idea works well (I don't like "Running Away From You" much but as all the others it's something unique on this record so it at least contributes to the overall number of styles). Considering the warning I just got from the system I should probably refrain from giving it all five stars but still I love this and it's a pretty pretty strong 4.