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"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.

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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