BREATHLESS

Lets begin by just admitting that 1978 was a pretty awful year for progressive rock. As the genre faded out of the mainstream and both disco and punk emerged, many bands were forced to abandon the sounds that made their music good and adopt personas that were more in line with the impending era of album-oriented rock. Camel were no exception to this trend, although it seems like they did try to at least make some effort to try to stay progressive. The era from 1977 to 1984 is considered to be the low point of the band's history, and for the most part I agree.

"Breathless" was the second album to feature the Camel lineup of guitarist Andrew Latimer, keyboardist Peter Bardens, bassist Richard Sinclair, drummer Andy Ward, and multi-instrumentalist Mel Collins. While I am personally a fan of the music from "Rain Dances", the album indeed failed to meet its lofty expectations, and "Breathless" is a step in the wrong direction, with the band gearing their sound towards more radio-friendly compositions and drifting away from the smooth progressive jazz fusion that defined their fifth album. From the opening title track, it is obvious that there is quite a lot of mediocre filler on this album that really is only worth one listen before shelving. We'll get these songs out of the way, "Breathless", "Wing and a Prayer", "Starlight Ride", "You Make Me Smile", and "Rainbow's End". I just outlined over half of the album which isn't remotely progressive or listenable.

That doesn't go to say the entirety of this album is horrible. Like I said earlier, Camel still made an effort to create original progressive compositions, and this is evidenced in what I believe are the two major takeaways from the album, "The Sleeper", and "Echoes", with the latter in particular being one of my favorite Camel songs in general. "The Sleeper" is a more jazzy instrumental which emphasizes a unique dynamic between Bardens and Collins, while "Echoes" is a very lush song that is borderline neo-prog, and showcases the dynamic between Latimer and Bardens that made for excellent instrumentation on the band's most essential albums. It's also important to note the complexity of Richard Sinclair's basslines; a sheer improvement over Doug Ferguson. It is a shame that we never got to see Sinclair perform on a Camel album that had greater emphasis on the Canterbury tendencies of the band.

With that said, we do get a small taste of what a strictly Canterbury Camel would have looked like with the song "Down on the Farm", which is a Sinclair composition that comes straight out of the style of Caravan. Quintessentially British and humorous in nature with a nice Mel Collins flute solo at the end, it is a nice deep cut that might be worth listening to if you're a fan of Canterbury Scene.

Overall, "Breathless" really shows an acceleration into commercial rock music for Camel. While there are some good moments on this album, it's not really an album worth listening to in its entirety if you're a prog rock fan. I would only recommend this album to those who are both fans of "Rain Dances" and the Alan Parsons Project. Unfortunately, this wouldn't even be the worst album Camel would release, as Bardens would leave the band after the album was released, with him never to return, effectively ending the golden age of Camel. To make matters worse, the band would sink farther down over the next four years as pressure from the label to release mediocre mainstream music for radio play intensified.

FINAL RATING: 2.2/5

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