THE SNOW GOOSE

I'm not feeling it, people! Yeah, it's cool to use a children's story for musical inspiration, but these guys are no Benjamin Britten or Tchaikovsky. Rather than break the album down for a song-by-song review, I'm going to give my overall impressions. There are some memorable themes which, like a classical music symphony, ballet, or operetta, are repeated and recapitulated in variations. I usually really enjoy flute-led music, and respect the musicianship of the Camel band members, I just think this is more fun and games, challenging the band members to tighten up their skills and whole-band abilities. The "Rhyader" themes are quite STEELY DAN-like, jazzy and playful. The next two character portraits are both pretty while the more powerful, anthemic Snow Goose theme is quite FOCUS-like--(almost too close for comfort). The "Friendship" theme is as playful as one might expect with nice presence of oboe followed by the Burt Bacharach-like "Migration." We kind of stay in the jazz-pop realm until the Flight finally gets us back into proggy stuff. "Preparation" seems to move us back to more folk-classical territory, despite the keys. Very RPI feeling here, too (GOBLIN and PFM come to mind). "Dunkirk" takes us straight to Canterbury and is probably my favorite song and is carried through "Epitaph" until we get to the piano of the Snow Goose-Fritha reunion sex scene. Princess and Marsh bring us full circle and to a close nicely.

It's not bad, it's good--very good--cinematic and pretty. I just don't think this is a masterpiece of progressive rock music. Four stars is appropriate for the cohesive, coherent, melodic whole. I think what this album lacks--and this is true for Camel in general--is explosiveness and flurries into more raw, abrasive sounds. It's too smooth, too lite.