Mirage vs Moonmadness

I will go for Mirage as it has a special place in my heart.

It has a much more 'raw' and i happily admit, in places, slightly sloppy sound (if that equates to 'immature', so be it..); it was recorded by a band relatively early in their career when really neither their 'sound' or audience were defined. In the early days they were playing to a more 'underground' audience in the UK.. certainly one that was not yet so defined by the 'prog' tag.. possibly one of the reasons they didnt go down well in Italy on early support slots with VDGG etc?

The Snow Goose was a departure into a much more nuanced and tighter compositional sound for the band and even more so for Moonmadness which epitomises the 'Camel sound'.

For me, Camel never fully-realized their tremendous potential. With a revolving door lineup of musicians, you gotta wonder what it was that made them unable to keep a set lineup of committed musicians. Pretty much a one man show, it's too bad Andy just didn't pick a new band name for each album--or just put it out there for what it was: the latest "Andy Latimer Project." Plus, they were a band that never successfully found its voice--literally--(much as they tried) and, thus, suffered from a continuing identity crisis. From album to album, we the buyer never knew what we would be getting (which can be exciting, but results, ultimately, in disappointment when it never lives up to hopes and expectations). Don't get me wrong: I kept up my faith--kept buying the records, kept finding enjoyable songs or elements of songs in each and every album; but, to me, no Camel album has ever compared to the heights of those reached by the likes of Yes, Magma, Genesis, PFM, Banco, AREA, Mahavishnu/RTF, Univers Zero/Art Zoyd, Änglagård, or even Rush, Renaissance, Focus, VDGG, Opeth, Weather Report, J-L Ponty, Dream Theater, or SWilson/PT.