THE SNOW GOOSE

I remember the first song I heard by Camel was Rhayader. It was on a Czech prog website in the radio - online kind of 'best of' from the range of various bands. Wow, that was absolutely amazing! Nevertheless, for the reason of number and length of the songs, and also probably because of the cover, I started my career as a Camel traveller with Mirage. And basically my, rather to say, comment to this album will compare these 2 albums.

'The end justifies the means'. This phrase somehow goes together with this album for me. I've recently listened to and reviewed The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis - Both albums have in common one thing and that is concept. Take previous albums by both bands, Mirage is a good example - this album looks like a volcano, an effusion of creativity, musical possibilities and rivalry of talents meddling into exciting experience. On the other hand, when I started to explore this album, it was rather nice and cute background for my game playing on the computer. No Lady Fantasy this time, no Gandalf, no Bardens' and Latimer' virtuosic orgies.

For my great luck, I've recently had chance to buy this record and the money spent helped me to appreciate what's going on. I dived into the album's poetics. It's mild, very careful, very tender. Unlike Lamb on Brodway, I believe all the members did their best and enjoyed composing. There is something true and moving in their expression. The biggest contribution is Andrew Latimer whose guitar is a speech organ of his emotions, incredible and beautiful. Friendship and La Princesse Perdue - I am happy I could finally appreciate this delicious sound and melody. Bardnes, on the contrary, was for me an atmospere builder. I like very much his cooperation and rivalry with Latimer. These two had enough space for themselves and I believe this rivalry helped each other to shine brighter. What I also want to point out is Andy Ward's drumming- kind of jazzy, very fresh, airy (even though I'm not a Rain Dances fan), he reminds me of Bill Bruford.

One last thing I want to highlight on this album is the subtle nature of the orchestra. In a way that the album is not infested with pomp and showy emotions, but very sober.

One very last thing - even a duffle coat can become an instrument :-)