MOONMADNESS

Moonmadness is the fourth album from symphonic proggers Camel and the highlight of their career IMO. It was the end of the original line-up as bassist Doug Ferguson would leave after this album. The first four albums from Camel do have a special place in my prog rock collection even though I´m not the most devoted fan in the world. Their music has always been strangely calming to me. Very pleasant listening experiences. They have the most soft sound in the world as if they played in cotton.

The music is symphonic prog rock with lots of vintage keyboard sounds, flute and the melodic guitar playing from bandleader Andy Latimer. The vocals are not very dominant and they only appear in about half the songs. People always bitch about Came´s vocals but I have always found them nice and calming. They are not fantastic but they suit the music fine. The vocals duty is split between the members of the band which really can´t be heard as they all have similar sounding voices. I think their vocal style reminds me of some of the Canterbury scene vocalists.

Unlike most of my fellow reviewers I wasn´t too impressed with The Snow Goose which I quite frankly found a bit boring. It means the world to me that Camel have chosen to add vocals to Moonmadness even though they are pretty sparse. Not surprisingly my favorites on Moonmadness are Song Within a Song and Air Born which are the longest songs with vocals on the album. Another Night even though it is a good song is a bit too much on the commercial side for me. Chord Change and Lunar Sea which are the longest instrumentals on Moonmadness are very good songs too though, so don´t think I don´t like the instrumental songs. Chord Change is the most exciting for me.

The musicianship has reached it´s peak in Camel with this album, and everything just sounds so good.

The production is excellent. A school example of how seventies prog rock should sound if you like the softer version.

I think Moonmadness is one of the best albums Camel has ever made. I don´t feel that it´s an essential album for prog rock even though it´s excellent. I´ll rate it 4 stars and I will recommend this to anyone who likes soft progressive rock that doesn´t offend anybody but still has enough substance to please just about every prog head I know.