Renaissance
Grandine Il Vento

The stubbornness of musicians and their uniqueness is well-known: an overflowing ego often combined with fragile, complex, and complicated personalities, feeling so much on stage but having no idea on how to self-manage a career, a regular and common mood that from Mozart to Ray Charles today makes every written biography, every celebratory film, and even the daily digressions consumed in a free blog of reviewers so delightful with that sudden bitter hint.

In many cases, not even death has managed to stop the perfect storm, cementing many myths at the right moment, but many are the drags reserved for a reality no longer tied to the flower of youth, sworn enemy of the performance, the fixed and proud look towards the audience, the applause snatched at any cost.

Today rock daily reveals to us not only the obituary notices but also those of the navigators with a deflated dinghy, because the fast sloops, the raiding galleons, and even the placid caravels have long since changed ownership. Like desperate refugees, with few means, these shadows of the past attempt the crossing.

Impressive and chilling is the sight of an Annie Haslam on YouTube, left with no choice but to stage a telemarketing attempt to sell a series of memorabilia to finance the creation of the new Renaissance album: scraping the bottom of the barrel nothing here, one has only to dive into the barrel to stay afloat, waiting for a sign at the water's surface that might anticipate the landing.

The sign doesn’t take long to appear, but it doesn’t come from outside: exhausted by hardships, the old boatswain Michael Dunford closes his eyes forever without anyone else noticing, and amidst the general dismay, a shiny piece of land emerges in front of the sober vessel.

Grandine Il Vento would have risked meeting the author's fate without his "providential" sacrifice: like in the case of the EP The Mystic And The Muse, a triptych of tracks released in 2010 and distributed during concerts, nobody today would have noticed the goodness of the operation and the recovery of a sound recalling those furious assaults in full compliance, that impossible-to-match musical majesty, those epic proportions so inappropriate in a 2013 dominated by vacuity.

Nothing remains but to extend one's arm to the impeccable Annie, 66 years of five octaves still present in all their splendor, low registers of an elderly lady but absolutely stunning in the high notes, with very few overdubs leaving her free to express herself and conclude various episodes in her own way, as no one else has managed to do in Progressive: Symphony Of Light in a dozen minutes finds the treasure chest key and opens it, hoping that everyone can enjoy that dazzling light, those precious gifts. Movements dive into one another, grand openings and delicate harmonies overlap with the usual elegance. Sure, it’s not a Steinway Grand Piano or a David Rubio Harpsichord what you hear, the budget, I repeat, is what it is, but I would challenge anyone to come up with an arrangement like this.

The main strength lies in the compositions themselves: Michael Dunford adds intros of strumming acoustics and passionately finished solos to the usual pianistic background, reconnecting with that sound lost after 1978, nestled between Prologue and A Song For All Seasons, so to speak. Here, what makes the difference are the appearances, notable percussive breaths alternating with the expressive magic of Ian Anderson's flute in the seductive Cry To The World, a successful escape route between the memories of Carpet Of The Sun and Northern Lights… a perfect 45 rpm for the fantasy of old fans. Equally evocative is Annie’s duet with John Wetton, a Blood Silver Like Moonlight with sorrowful and almost cinematic tones, made of parallels and sudden double vocal lines… pure craftsmanship. A certain musical theater vibe is also felt in Air Of Drama, but it is in the typical Renaissance Sound the ability to still create great things: the Title Track, very similar in structure to the classic Ocean Gypsy, is a new vocal gymnasium, as well as The Mystic And The Muse, recovered from the EP three years ago, an epic gallop of chills, pomp and splendor in their purest form, full of tempo and atmosphere changes as if 40 years hadn’t passed at all, a minisuite that alone is worth the price of admission… and even that jewel slipped out of the chest, silently ended up in my pocket.

Once the show is over, everyone leaves happy and content, Amazon for distributing the album, Annie for having already replaced poor Michael with a new guitarist, the enthusiasts convinced that "Mors tua, Vita mea" can still turn the wheel.

It's almost dawn, the review is over… I want to disembark too… Thanks grandson, for lending me the dinghy!!!