THE SNOW GOOSE

Camel's 'The Snow Goose' is a unique album and not just for being an instrumental concept album based on a book. It introduces some rare warm-hearted feelings and vulnerability into melodic symphonic prog. In fact, it casts that distinctive happy-sad sentiment, almost like a good family Christmas story. To my knowledge Grobschnitt's 'Rockpommel's Land' is the only thing that comes close. I've always loved the fact that in progressive rock the instrumental parts (ideally) are imaginative and telling a story without words - this album excels at that. The band uses the full symphonic prog playbook to create a journey full of atmospheres, ranging form dark, serene, exciting, folky, intimate to festive. Andy Latimer sounded great as a guitarist before, but on this record he shows himself to be a true stratocaster guitar tone master. The variation of sounds and expressions here is just amazing. Though a blissful album in many ways , I've never actually liked the original album its recording sound much. I always listen to the version on the second LP of Camel's 'A Live Record' from 1978. That version of this album outgrows the progressive rock genre and has made many non-initiated music fans I know really exciting about this group.