THE SNOW GOOSE

For the reasons I mentionned in my review of their first album, I entered the Camel repertoire quite lately (in September ... 2004). with "Snow Goose" (together with "Moonmadness"). I must admit that I quite liked it at the first spins but I also got tired of it quite rapidly.

Since I discovered afterwards that the vocals were not really Camel's trademark, the fact that this album is an all-instrumental piece of work is not disturbing.

But the record company, specially in the US was horrified to find out that "The Snow Goose" had no vocals ! It was intended to have a written narrative thread by Paul Gallico (the author of the novel "The Snow Goose") linking each piece of music on the album sleeve. But he never granted permission to do so. To avoid legal matters, the band had to change the title into "Music Inspired by The Snow Goose". It is very hard for me to imagine a storyboard from an all intrumental piece, so I could not really enter into this "story".

It is made of lots of short tracks (16 songs for 43 minutes of music) which could provoke some kind of mixed feelings about it. The ambiance is sometimes very "Trespass-Esque" if I may.

The first six numbers flow perfectly one into the other with some good and passionate moments. The middle part of the album is weaker ("Friendship"and "Migration") and it sounds like the band lacks in enthusiasm. The remaining parts being in-line with the start : good music but no highlights (being a concept album does not mean that it could not contained highlights).

Even if it is a good record, it is not my fave one from Camel. Try and get hold of the remastered version for its 24 minutes bonus track (again, not essential, but good to listen to) : some single releases and some live ones (still recorded at the Marquee). It will peak at the 22nd spot in the UK charts. Three stars.