I CAN SEE YOUR HOUSE FROM HERE

This Camel album (from the lousy prog year 1979) divides opinions strongly; there are both five-star and zero-star reviews here. Since it has some stupid fillers - 'Remote Romance' and 'Your Love is Stranger Than Mine' - and it sounds different with yet another line-up, it was at first easy to consider it clearly worse than previous Camels. But after enjoying Camel for about 15 years this one hasn't lost its glory either. It is quite uneven, but so are most Camels, including Snow Goose which usually is regarded as the masterpiece. And compared to Breathless ('78) there is a fresh step forward. I can imagine if Camel had continued with Mel Collins and R. Sinclair, it had started to repeat itself boringly. Kit Watkins fits in greatly with his juicy keyboard style, while Andy Latimer is still the strong captain. (His flute is unfortunately nearly absent this time, but the guitar+keyboard interplay is remarkably powerful.) 'Who We Are' and 'Ice' alone make this worthy, them being among my favourite Camel tracks. I prefer this album to its follower Nude which suffers from its concept - I mean the story has taken some energy from composing the music itself. ----- Interesting cover picture: reminds me of Quiet Zone (VDG). Is there some message in the picture and in the title? ("The Lord said Peter, I can see your house from here..." - Roger Waters)