New Renaissance Records was a notably prolific American record label founded in 1984 by Ann Boleyn, the vocalist for Hellion. After her band cracked the British Music Charts' Top 10 (reaching #6, as reported in the UK magazines Sounds & Kerrang!), Boleyn grew frustrated when she was unable to find a record deal for her band domestically. According to a March 1985 interview with her in Kerrang!, Boleyn admitted to selling her car & musical instruments in order to fund initial pressings of a run of compilation albums & collectively featured the earliest commercial recordings of some rather uncommercial bands which included
Wehrmacht, Morbid Angel, Artillery, Mayhem, Prong, Sepultura, At War, Savage Grace, Flotsam and Jetsam and several others.
By 1985, the demand for heavy metal products resulted in a packaging & distribution offer from the UK's Greenworld Distribution to both New Renaissance Records & Roadrunner Records. Therefore, some of the earliest pressings on New Renaissance bear the Greenworld label & feature a catalogue number beginning with "GWD".
However, by 1986 Greenworld Distribution became embroiled in legal problems with its distribution of the Dead Kennedy's album Frankenchrist. In early 1986, Greenworld went out of business. Past that, the catalogue numbers have all begun with "NR."
Acts signed by the label included Chyld, Rock City Angels (which featured actor Johnny Depp), Wehrmacht, Sepultura, Morbid Angel, Artillery, King Kobra, Ironchrist & Kublai Khan. In addition, Wilder (Carmen Wilder), Holocross, Amulance, Blood Feast, Cerebus, Dream Death, Deadly Blessing, Forger (featuring Geoff Mega), Medieval, Post Mortem, At War, Savage Grace, Mayhem, Prong, Whiplash, Indestroy, Screamer, and more.
The label's founder took time off from the music business to study law & obtained her license to practice in December 2007. The label maintains its catalogue of over thirty titles which are still distributed worldwide.
In 2009, after over two decades former New Renaissance recording artist At War emerged from Virginia foliage armed with nine tracks & the unanticipated intention of laying them down in career continuance better recollected when it & the label were both younger entities - its mid/late '80s full-lengthers Ordered to Kill (1986) & Retaliatory Strike (1988), as well as its simply-titled four-song disc Limited Edition EP (1988). Apparently At War is three times charmed, for the response to Infidel has found some acclaim attached to it since going street-side, and even iTunes has accepted the rejuvenated three-piece's friendly fire.
As recent as 2014 has witnessed New Renaissance release a Hellion two-disc anthology entitled To Hellion and Back. Another endeavor, Karma's a Bitch, soon followed, however this effort unveiled the first new music by the band in over a decade.
Over the years a number of releases from the company's catalog have surfaced as bootlegged material, mostly on compact disc.
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