As evolutions go, the outfit known as Renaissance worked a weirder one than most. Originally formed out of the meltdown of the Yardbirds (Keith Relf and Jim McCarty wanting to try their hand at something a little more sophisticated) it would, in time, pull what’s known as a Ship of Theseus (the Theseus’ paradox  being a thought experiment, first posed in the late first century, that raises the question of whether an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object). In Renaissance’ case, that meant all the original members were long gone by the time 1973’s Ashes Are Burning came along. And that “more sophisticated” sound – it had evolved into a mostly acoustic progressive rock that was nevertheless managed to get very big and dramatic when required, with Ashes Are Burning (the song) about as epic as they ever got. And soaring above it all, you had the inimitable voice of Annie Haslam, classically trained and as strong and vast and high and ghostly and beautiful a sound as has ever been heard on any kind of so-called rock song.