THE SNOW GOOSE

The idea of Camel doing an entire album sans vocals (except ''Migration'') does not sit well with me. Yes, I do agree that Camel normally does not have very dynamic singers within its ranks, but there was no bad vocalist in the group. Their lyrical sections were always in small doses, but they punctuated the songs so well that they're nearly magical.

The absence of singing proper is noticed by this reviewer. Surprisingly enough, the music is based on a novel of the same name, THE SNOW GOOSE. In fact, the official title of the album is called MUSIC INSPIRED BY THE SNOW GOOSE. So with a literary concept in tact, it would normally make too much sense to put a ton of words in. I believe there were legal issues involved with the original author, Paul Gallico, but I don't know enough information to confirm any facts behind the whole thing.

Even though I'm not much of a lyrics type of person, I can understand how it can be a bit difficult to follow this album without any words to sing along to. Through my newfound love of musicals, I've learned to follow stories of certain works without necessarily sitting down and reading anything because the stories ought to have some decent clarity without any lyrics sheet or libretto; I could very well use one of those librettos for this because the story is quite hard to track down just by listening to the music.

For more than just those factors, this is in my opinion the clear loser out of the first four Camel albums, and the lack of vocals is easy to blame for the lackluster-ness. There's a little bit more to it than that. Many of the longer tracks like the ''Rhayader'' sections and ''Dunkirk'' provide the heights progsters come to expect out of a Camel album. Unfortunately, there are equally boring pieces like the ''Fritha'' sections and the title track that bog the album down. The inclusion of a small orchestra in ''Friendship'' sounds enticing, but the actual product sounds like stock music. And I seem to notice a larger amount of jazzy shuffle structures throughout the album.

THE SNOW GOOSE is an album to be played as background music. Coming from a band that gave the world ''Lady Fantasy'', ''Never Let Go'', and ''Freefall'', that isn't exactly a compliment.