HARBOUR OF TEARS

After releasing 'The single factor' I thought that we lost Camel forever. That album was poor, with actually nothing reminiscent of the old Camel in terms of melodic, symphonic, sometimes bombastic but always well crafted music. But with 'Dust and dreams' Andy Latimer surprised us all in an extremely pleasant way. And for me he even surpassed the quality of that album with the release of 'Harbour of tears' as this album has so many different spheres, ranging from traditional folk to melancholic ballads to sharp guitar driven concise songs. Too bad the album closes with the much too long 'Song for my father', no matter how sympathetic it was meant to be. 'Harbour of tears' features Camel at its most folkish. The album opens with two versions of the more than beautiful 'Irish air', one with haunting vocals and a superb instrumental rendition. The following title track is splendid in picking up the atmosphere that is set by the album openers and takes us into an album that is in every way a consistent set of songs. Or actually, a consistent collection of melodies, flowing over into each other, sometimes mellow, sometimes soft, sometimes harder edged ('Watching the bobbins'). As a whole it is a splendid hommage to a dark period in Irish history. Apart from writing songs in the traditional folk style, it is remarkable that Latimer uses female vocals on this album. A more than good choice, in my opinion; he should have done that more often! It adds enormously to Latimers rather dull and low expressive voice, that sticks good to the music but can easily be augmented with vocals like these, rendered by Mae MacKenna.

All in all this is one of my favourite Camel albums, apart from the more than 20 minutes rolling sea noises. So a five star, without hesitation