Customer Reviews

Renaissance

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wouldn't agree with Tony Allen that this is the greatest rock LP ever made (that honour goes to "Every good boy deserves favour" of the Moody Blues), but it likely ranks among my all time top 15 CD's, and it features some of the best psychedelic music I'm aware of! I agree with other reviewers that there is no weak song on this album, my favorites being Thoughts, That's what makes a man, Season of the witch. If you like this type of psychedelic music, check out Jefferson's Airplane's "After bathing at Baxter's", or the 17 minute epic "In held twas in I" from Procol Harum.

To my tastes, this is the greatest rock LP ever recorded!

Renaissance has a dense, intense sound that permeates every track. It is an emotional whirlpool...

...the introspection of "Thoughts", the triumph of "Thats What Makes A Man", the bliss of "Paradise", the desperation of "The Sky Cried When I Was A Boy" to the utter horror of "The Spell That Comes After".

Played a high volume, the overwhelming climax on "The Spell That Comes After" will plaster you to the back wall whilst the poem in the middle of "Season of the Witch" will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

It has a consistency of style throughout from the opening crash to the spooky whistled signature of "the beat goes on" at the end, always intense and often at the point of mental and physical breakdown. Blistering guitar (Vince Martell must surely be the most under-rated guitarist of all time) drenched in Hammond organ pumped through a wall of Leslie speakers backed by one of the best rhythm sections ever, not to mention Mark Stein's powerful emotional vocal.

No other record sounds like this record, it is truely unique.

I am surprised that David Loftus's review said that Tim Bogert suggested that the LP was a contractual toss-off. He was almost certainly refering to "Rock & Roll" (which was recorded whilst the band was breaking up), since I know that Vince Martell considers this LP his career highlight.

The Sundazed edition has the best sound ever for this record since the original masters (complete with splices etc) were dug out of the Atlantic archives for this release. The bonus tracks are fine and useful but don't quite fit into the style of the original LP. Where Is My Mind/The Look of Love was a single from the "Beat Goes On" period and "All In You Mind" was an outtake not released until recently. These three tracks might have been on the second LP if Shadow Morton hadn't convinced them to record his "master-work" ("The Beat Goes On").

If you like intense heavy music buy this!

Vanilla Fudge is known -- if they're known at all -- for turgid, lumbering covers of songs other people made famous, from the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" and "Eleanor Rigby" to "Windmills of Your Mind" and the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On," which has become a campy favorite of classic rock stations.

This album is a sorely underrated gem of American psychedelic rock, however. My Dad, whose extensive collection of jazz and classical albums was rarely penetrated by any pop music that post-dated 1960, pricked up his ears when he heard the eerie, spacey cover of Donovan's "Season of the Witch" on FM in 1968 and immediately went out and bought the album. Most of the rest of this fascinating period piece are originals.

Sharing top honors with the Donovan is "The Sky Cried, When I Was a Boy," which opens with a cymbal crash, a foreboding bass line on the synthesizer with higher ruminations behind, then a building crescendo into fierce electric lead guitar. The perhaps laughably dramatic vocals kick in, but when everything drops away to the quiet chorus with thunder rising behind it, your skin can't help but prickle.

Except for the fairly quotidian "That's What Makes a Man," most of the other compositions have rich and interesting emotional content. "Season" closed the original LP; the final three cuts on this CD are add-ons, and I am unfamiliar with them. In the wrong mood (after toking or dropping acid, maybe), this album might sound pretty silly, but it has an emotional intensity and truth that I never got from the Fudge's other efforts.

Brett Milano, a Boston rock critic acquaintance, interviewed one of the boys (Tim Bogert, I think) many years later, and I was thunderstruck that he wrote off this album as a mere contractual obligation toss-off.

A jewel unappreciated even by its makers.

This album was a fine example of progressive rock, and at the same time, had arguably the most heavy metal credibility out of all the band's releases. For Vanilla Fudge, the album was also the first to feature predominantly original compositions. Some of the highlights were the albums first two tracks, The Sky Cried, and Thoughts. The former featured some excellent guitar work, and is one of the most intense songs the band ever recorded. The latter started off in relaxing fashion before pounding into the bands trademark heaviness. It is the opinion of this writer that usually the best heavy metal has a density of instruments combining, as opposed to sheer volume. This statement would undoubtedly apply to the Fudge, as the organ and fuzz combine for the unparalleled density previously described. There really are not any "obviously inefficient" tracks, arguably making this the band's most consistent album. The album ends with what has to be the most intense version of Season of the Witch ever recorded, and a poem read in a most unusual voice. This version is reminiscent of Vanilla Fudge's earlier version of Eleanor Rigby, but has a paranoid energy that puts it in a class all by itself. The bonus tracks are generally good, with All In Your Mind and Where is My Mind both being effective soul/pop fusion, but the bonus cuts really do not go along with the original album's seven songs. Overall, the album is an emotional roller coaster ride with much mystery and despair. In the opinion of this writer, it is the best album by the band, and is strongly recommended.

After starting out as Rascals clones (with the real Rascals in the way), then moving to melodramatic pre-hard rock remakes of Motown and Beatles, a concept album/ history lesson based on Sonny Bono's "The Beat Goes On", this band finally hit full stride with their very first album that was mostly originals. Here, they were Deep Purple before Deep Purple were Deep Purple. Everything here but one extended throwback to the first album in the form of Donovan's "Season Of the Witch", as well as one bonus track, Bacharach's "The Look Of Love", is written in-house. I really think that if this band had been able to stay on the course set here, they would have survived the fall of acid rock. Instead, their memory lives on to inspire gothic metal bands who might not even be aware of their debt to the 'Fudge.

1968 was an incredible year for rock music, and at that time, RENAISSANCE was my very favorite record.

My friends teased me no end; they said the album's lyrics were sometimes pretentious-- hey, the Beatles white album had its lowlights, too and yes even Hendix was over-the-top occasionally-- dare I say so?

What I always loved about this greatest of all Fudge sets were the heartfelt emotions openly expressed in it, the sheer power of the music, and the beauty that lay within songs like "Paradise."

I recently heard RENAISSANCE for the first time in decades. Everything I found special about it so long ago still moves me the way it did when I was young. As a musical document of a brief time in my life this will probably always remain a touchstone for me.

For anyone who remembers those days, or for acid rock connoisseurs of all ages, RENAISSANCE is one of the finest examples of that musical genre you will ever encounter.


PROGRAM--

SIDE ONE
The Sky Cried / When I Was A Boy
Thoughts
Paradise
That's What Makes A Man

SIDE TWO
The Spell That Comes After
Faceless People
Season of the Witch

If you can overlook some of the melodramatic corn in the vocals department (Bogert's in "When I was a Boy"; Vinnie's moans and groans, the producer Shadow Morton's soliloquy, and Bogert's demand and plea in "Season of the Witch"), here you have a great, yes, prog before there was prog album, complete with mature musicianship and complex arrangements far ahead of the psychedelia of the time. Bonus cuts on a classic LP usually spell "muck up", but luckily the ones on this Sundazed edition aren't too bad. (Has anyone noticed the master tape skewing at the end section of "Faceless People"? Compare it to the vinyl, when the tapes were new.) Over all, a surprisingly nice addition to any prog collection. The beat goes on, indeed!

The band which, arguably, did everything in their power to give psychedelic music the worst possible name had only one legitimately good album in them. And this was it. Whatever it was which enabled them to make it, it was a pity that it didn't stay with them. This version is also a treat for including among the bonus tracks "Where Is My Mind", one of the most underappreciated B-sides of 1960s rock.

Here is Vanilla Fudge's magnum opus "Renaissance". Yes, the 60's was a Renaissance Era. The Psychedelic Renaissance. This is Vanilla Fudge's 3rd album released in 1968 on Atco Records shortly before Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, another psychedelic masterpiece. Every song on Renaissance is worth the price of admission with an exceptional rhythm section (Tim & Carmine), HEAVY Hammond organ (Mark), nasty guitar work (Vinny) and not to mention and their trademark ethereal vocal harmonies (group). This was released when the Fudge were at their peak and all the elements (life, beauty, acid, love and doom) came together and manifested in this masterpiece. Don't analyse the album too much, it is the best of the best of the major label psych rock albums of 1968 and if this was privately issued or on an obscure label, you'd be paying over $1,000.00 easy in the record collectors market and on Ebay. Vanilla Fudge is an organ lover's delight and this whole album is drenched in organ and when panned from the L and R channels as in "The Spell That Comes After", makes you dizzy, the sheer beauty of "That's What Makes a Man" makes you teary eyed and "Thoughts" makes you wanna fly. Shadow Morton did an excellent job producing the Fudge's solid musicianship into a sonic tapestry on display here. Every member shines on this album without a doubt. This is how you want to remember the Fudge! Their debut was also an exceptional record, very soulful, very beautiful, but the Fudge expanded tremendously on Renaissance and they knew it, hence the title (they had to redeem themselves after the release of their 2nd album The Beat Goes On flopped). Whether it's psych rock, prog rock, an early incarnation of heavy metal, symphonic rock, whatever. Proof is in the Vanilla Fudge pudding! To hell with a desert island, this is one of my stranded on the moon picks.

For just good '60s music I believe that Vanilla Fudge is one of the top. I now have their first 3 albums on cd & enjoy them all. I really like their version of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" on this cd. This is the music I grew up with and now I can grow old with it.