MOONMADNESS

After the excellent "The Snow Goose", which allowed Camel to finally have a greater appreciation and general recognition, the British band maintains a superlative level with "Moonmadness", their fourth album. Without being a conceptual work like that of the famous goose, the album maintains a coherence and sense of unity despite the fact that not all the tracks have a common storyline, relying on sung passages to reinforce the instrumental developments.

With atmospheres generally vaporous and detached from the ground, from the lunar and marching "Aristillus", where Peter Bardens is the protagonist with his cosmic sounds courtesy of the synthesizers, "Moonmadness" opts for sculpting relaxed landscapes and transcendent connections, like the sensorial "Song Within a Song", the hypnotic "Spirit of the Water" and the aquatic voices of Bardens, or the restful "Air Born" and Latimer's flute sweetening its lysergic becoming.

And just as at the beginning of the album, "Moonmadness" concludes amidst spacey sonorities with the mysterious "Lunar Sea", drawn from Bardens' keyboards and Latimer's lively guitars in jazz mode, both musicians determined to move away from earthly limits, correctly backed by Doug Ferguson's persistent bass and Andy Ward's incisive drums.

Most valuable of the 2002 and 2009 remastered editions is the 1976 London concert, with very good sound, where the band demonstrates all their instrumental mastery and, on the other hand, that the vocal part was not their strongest point.

After "Moonmadness", disagreements over the musical direction the band should take led to Ferguson's departure, thus culminating Camel's most recognisable and glorious period.

4/4,5 stars