GRANDINE IL VENTO [AKA: SYMPHONY OF LIGHT]

When I heard that Renaissance was releasing a new album I had quite great expectations. Maybe a little more than I should. But, after all, it was Annie Haslam´s superb voice put together with Michael Dunford´s compositions. It could not fail, right? Besides, the new back up band is excellent, and their recent live DVD/CD playing their classic stuff is there to prove how skillful their are musically and respectful of their glorius past. And, additionally, they have a couple of prog icons (Ian Anderson and John Wetton) to give them a little help on a couple of tracks.

So why only 3 stars? Well, after repeated spins it is my painful duty to say the weakness of the album lays exactly on the shoulders of Haslam and Dunford. First: Michael´s new compositions are far from his best. They are nice, alright, but completely predicable and unimaginitive. The band tries hard to sound like the classic 70´s line up: you´ll find the familiar tickling classical piano lines, the fat bass runs, Dunford´s discreet but effective acoustic guitar and the very organic percussion. Even the bass player does a complete Jon Camp interpretation nicely singing some parts of Air Of Drama. But the new songs are, most of the time, just too bland.

Worse yet is Haslam´s interpretations: she sounds tired and without conviction. The technique is there, but not the passion.Not that the end result is bad, since no song here is crap nor Haslam´s voice have not lost its beauty. But, really, I expected a lot more from such talented bunch. And the saddest thing to know it the fact tha there is no chance for Dunford to redeem himself, since he passed away during the recording of Grandine Il Vento. A real big loss for the music world.

So in the end I found this album good: nothing that compares to the classic 70´s stuff, of course, but better than most of what they released afterwards. At least a couple of tracks, Porcelaine and, specially, The Mystic And The Muse, are above all the others. The latter, a kind of spin off from A Song For All Seasons, is the album´s highlight. I really wish all the tunes were like that one.

Conclusion: Renaissance fans should listen and judge. Newbies should try their earlier albums long before they tackle this one. final ratins: something between 2,5 and 3 stars.