HARBOUR OF TEARS

The album "Dust and Dreams" marked the beginning of the period of Camel's musical independence, being free from the shackles of out-of-touch record executives, and the album "Harbour of Tears" is largely a continuation of that theme. It is yet another concept album, albeit the last in the band's discography to date, and deals largely with melancholic and emotive tones. This time, Latimer & Co. explores the Irish potato famine and subsequent emigration to the United States.

While the lineup for this album is a little bit different from "Dust and Dreams", the band's emphasis on the persona of Andrew Latimer makes it so that one really does not notice any change in personnel. Colin Bass sticks around on bass, and, with his taste in world music, likely contributed heavily to the atmosphere of the album. Prog session journeyman keyboardist Mickey Simmonds replaces Ton Scherpenzeel, while John Xepoleas takes over on the drums for Paul Burgess. The album opens up with an a capella "Irish Air", sang in a traditional Gaelic fashion by Mae McKenna, who appeared on "Dust and Dreams" in the song "Rose of Sharon". Latimer then comes in to do a reprise with his guitar to get the album going. The title track introduces the listener to the concept, and the structural similarities to the previous album are pretty striking, which is unfortunate in the context that Camel generally was able to bring some variation with their albums up to this point. While I will not go as far as to say that "Harbour of Tears" sounds exactly like "Dust and Dreams", you can definitely tell they came from the same time period, with the same creative direction behind it.

And that gives me a good transition to talk about "Harbour of Tears" biggest problem, that being the relative lack of creativity relative to the rest of Camel's discography. Everything is very refined, and the music is progressive. However, Camel does not come out of its comfort zone to really challenge not only the listener, but their own musical talents. It becomes pretty clear as the album proceeds, onto "Send Home the Slates" which features the bass and vocals of one David Paton, who, like McKenna, appeared on "Rose of Sharon", that much of the music is a rehash of the motifs found on "Dust and Dreams". It is like a poor man's "In the Wake of Poseidon" to "In the Court of the Crimson King". Even the most memorable song "Watching the Bobbins" is essentially this album's "Mother Road", down to the tempo. While the world music influences are heavier on this album, and we get some refreshing compositions such as "Eyes of Ireland", they are few and far between, and to make matters worse, Camel decides to, once again in the vein of "Dust and Dreams", dedicate the second half of the album to instrumentals.

I tried my best to engage myself with this part of the album. This was the last Camel studio album I had yet to have heard, and I made sure to listen to it repeatedly before posting this review. I had heard some good things about the song "Coming of Age", and while there is some solid themes in the music, there was nothing that I really took away from this part of the album. It was very disappointing, and to make matters worse, there was the closing track "The Hour Candle". It is not a bad song, at least when the music is playing. For whatever reason, the band decided to make this composition 23 minutes, and initially I was super excited thinking Camel had written its first true epic in the vein of King Crimson's "Lizard" or Yes's "Nous Sommes du Soleil", but in reality it was an eight minute track with some FIFTEEN MINUTES of the sound of light waves crashing to end the album. There was no payoff to listening to this, as there is no triumphant ending to compensate for the listener wasting his time. While the Wikipedia page for the album does caution the listener about the song, it does not state that the 15 minutes of largely silence are at the end of the song. This was the first time I really feel let down and robbed by a Camel album, and it's unfortunate that the band did not at least try to make "Harbour of Tears" end on a more monumental and worthwhile note.

"Harbour of Tears" is incredibly boring. It is, dare I say it, Camel's most boring album, and it's a shame given the band's newfound creative freedom and progressive direction. Even the Latimer solos are prodding and starchy. There is enough good and engaging material here for it to not be considered one of Camel's worst, but it is better described as painfully mediocre, building upon what was in reality a pretty mediocre album in "Dust and Dreams". The only real takeaways are the songs "Watching the Bobbins", "Eyes of Ireland", and "Coming of Age". I feel this album is just borderline good but non-essential, although it could definitely deserve a "collectors only" appraisal from a less gracious reviewer. Echoing another reviewer here who ended up giving the exact same rating as I did, I don't see what much of the community sees in this album. Fortunately, this wasn't Camel's last hoorah, and they finally chose to break the concept album streak to release what I consider to be one of the most underrated prog albums of all time.

OVERALL RATING: 2.7/5

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