"Ashes Are Burning" is a Renaissance Affair to Remember: Prog Review #31

The opening two-and-a-half-minutes of Ashes Are Burning (1973) are glorious.

Can You Understand?

An ephemeral piano gradually fades up until a crash of guitar and drums introduces a soaring melody propelled by percussive piano, backed by tinny cymbals and a meaty bassline. Before the groove wears out its welcome, a synthesizer howl pitches up, a breakdown, and the melody changes before transitioning into near-silent atmospherics. When the music cuts back in, it's 60s folk proggified. Angelic backing "ah"s, and then "Can You Understand" truly begins: it's a slow acoustic-led number, with faintly eastern vibes supporting Annie Halsam's confident, wide-ranging vocals. Then the song ends as it began, with the return of the proggy-yet-traditionalist instrumental.

It's an incredible trick of Renaissance that I'm familiar with from another of their albums, Scheherazade and Other Stories (1975). They embellish simple songs with a grand fusion of English folk melody and driving, impassioned rock instruments, plus some eastern and classical touches.

Annie Halsam's ethereal voice hearkens back to Joni Mitchel—or forward to Dolores O'riordan—in its warmth and evocativeness and harmonious juxtaposition with an acoustic guitar. The twinkling percussion and Renaissance fair strings serve important roles as well.

Clear your mind maybe you will find / That the past is still turning / Circles sway echo yesterday / Ashes burning ashes burning - “Ashes Are Burning”

Taking Inspiration from the Past

Renaissance's name is aptly chosen. As classic prog bands go, Renaissance barely classifies. Many of the songs are short, self-contained English folk songs: warm, pastoral, and lush. The finest, most uplifting of these is the beatific "Let it Grow." The classical piano section of "On the Frontier" signal the band's sensibilities as an act comfortable to look mainly toward Europe's musical past for inspiration in creating something new; "At the Harbour" is practically an aria!

On the final track, the enduring "Ashes Are Burning," Renaissance is a little more ambitious, incorporating piano, harpsichord, and synths in turn, perhaps illustrating the many incarnations of the clavichord and their shared relevance to the contemporary scene. The 11-minute track isn't exactly a multi-movement epic, but it contains enough shifts in tone and rhythm to please many a prog fan with its trade-offs of virtuosic solos, including a wordless vocal line that showcases Halsam at her most operatic.

Ashes are Burning is nowhere near the most complex or challenging or innovative albums to feature on Rolling Stone's list. It is, perhaps, the most pleasant.

Rolling Stone Rankings

1. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

2. King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King

3. Rush - Moving Pictures

4. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

5. Yes – Close to the Edge

6. Genesis - Selling England by the Pound

7. Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick

8. Can - Future Days

9. Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

10. Yes - Fragile

11. Rush - Hemispheres

12. ELP - Brain Salad Surgery

13. Pink Floyd - Animals

14. Genesis - Foxtrot

15. King Crimson - Red

16. Gentle Giant - Octopus

17. Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells

18. Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All

19. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Per Un Amico

20. King Crimson - Larks’ Tongue in Aspic

21. Camel - Mirage

22. Rush - 2112

23. Tangerine Dream - Phaedra

24. Magma - Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh

25. The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium

26. Van Der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts

27. Supertramp - Crime of the Century

28. Opeth - Blackwater Park

29. Dream Theater - Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory

30. U.K. - U.K.

31. Renaissance - Ashes Are Burning

ASK Rankings

1. Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

2. Supertramp - Crime of the Century

3. Genesis - Foxtrot

4. Camel - Mirage

5. Yes – Close to the Edge

6. Renaissance - Ashes Are Burning

7. King Crimson - Red

8. Gentle Giant - Octopus

9. Dream Theater - Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory

10. Genesis - Selling England by the Pound

11. Rush - 2112

12. Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick

13. ELP - Brain Salad Surgery

14. U.K. - U.K

15. Rush - Moving Pictures

16. King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King

17. The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium

18. Premiata Forneria Marconi - Per Un Amico

19. King Crimson - Larks’ Tongue in Aspic

20. Pink Floyd - Animals

21. Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All

22. Yes - Fragile

23. Rush - Hemispheres

24. Tangerine Dream - Phaedra

25. Magma - Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh

26. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

27. Can - Future Days

28. Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells

29. Van Der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts

30. Opeth - Blackwater Park

31. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here