THE SNOW GOOSE

Camel's first two albums were excellent efforts, perhaps let down a bit by the quality of the vocals. This time, they took two bold steps. One, they made the album almost completely instrumental (the voice is used more as an instrument on a couple of tracks) and two, they made it a concept album based on a short story set in World War 2 by Paul Gallico. This probably should have signalled a commercial disaster of monumental proportions. However, this concept is carried out to utter perfection and it sold in bucketloads (it still does). They have written beautiful, haunting tunes and interpreted the sad but lovely story and its characters so perfectly that it has the power to provoke tears. Their ability to play their instruments is astonishing and some of the guitar/keyboard interplay is breathtaking. Andy Latimer's flute adds variety as a lead instrument, the bass and drums fill in intelligently and the result is magical. It's melodic, thoughtful prog rock of the highest calibre - noone else has matched this, let alone surpassed it. They produced other albums of real merit, but this was their finest hour. Deserves 6 stars - no prog rock collection is complete without it and, out of my 800 albums, this is in my top 3. But read Gallico's story first before you listen!