RAJAZ

I'll just say it: Camel has not been Camel since Peter Bardens left the group. He was the second half of the songwriting and solos. His keyboards are as much a Camel sound as Andy Latimer's guitars and flute are. In his and Bardens words the beginning of the end of the core four (Latimer, Bardens, Ward & Ferguson) was at the end of the Moonmadness tour when Andy Ward started complaining that Ferguson's bass work was not jazz driven enough and he wanted to move in that direction. So he essentially informed Latimer & Bardens that it was either him or Doug. After cutting Doug out and bringing in Richard (Caravan) Sinclair and putting out the more jazz influenced Rain Dances, the music began to suffer. That album is good but not as good as the previous ones.

Sinclair didn't meld personality wise that well and ended up gone after the Breathless tour. Andy Latimer started seeing "hit single" in his mind wanting to shift the band more in the direction of being more commercially viable and that conflicted with Bardens and his desire to keep the progressive bent alive. Breathless was the result and aside from a few tracks it was a sharp departure from the past but still?? the sound was Camel again due to Peter's keys. Once he was forced out after that album was released Andy got his wish and put out I Can See Your House From Here (ICSYHFH). He later admitted it was a mistake to be something you are not. That was a poor album save a few songs but it started the new Camel sound.

At that point no matter who was behind the keyboards which is some cases were 2 people, the sound was never the same because the albums became mostly guitar dominated. Andy is a great guitar player but his strengths are more in the area of emotion and slower passages. When Nude was released after ICSYHFH, it was a concept album with mostly instrumentals which was seen as "a return to form" but it wasn't. The keyboards were lacking and the songs seemed not as complex.

I say all of this to point out there are really 2 Camels: The Classic cut and the Latimer cut. They are 2 different animals. While the Latimer cut can do classic stuff really well in a live setting with the keys the songwriting is only coming from one of the original 2. Peter had a strong hand in the songwriting department. When Camel went on break and Andy moved to California and started his own label, Dust & Dreams was the result and it along with this album, Harbour Of Tears & A Nod And A Wink are all Andy albums. So one really cannot grade these albums using the classic years as a judge.

I do like some of the songs on this album and it seems more relaxed than Dust & Dreams but it never really does much for me. I wish that Andy would work with the keyboard players and have that back and forth rapport that he had with Bardens. Camel always was a heavy keyboard band and what made the classic lineup so good was that chemistry the 2 songwriters had with each other. So while this album has some moments, it really just isn't all that Camel to me.