MIRAGE

The reason that I got in touch with Camel was that an older proghead with a huge collection asked me to listen to Camel because of that funny part with the opening of a can of beer ... but I was so delighted about Andy Latimer his compelling guitar work that I became a fan for life. To me the album Mirage sounds as their most dynamic, adventurous and varied effort, "no fillers, all killers": a powerful and often howling electric guitar in the opener Freefall, pleasant work on flute in Supertwister (with the opening of that can of beer in the end), a wonderful harmony of lush violin-Mellotron, twanging guitar, a deep bass sound and excellent guitar play (loaded with emotion) in Nimrodel and wonderful guitar play and varied keyboards (floods of Hammond and a spectacular Minimoog solo) in Earthrise. But the absolute highlight is their 'magnum opus' Lady Fantasy, my favorite Camel composition and a 'crowd pleaser' too: lots of exciting shirting moods, great work on guitar and keyboards, splendid interplay by all musicians and after a hypnotizing middle- part, there is that mindblowing heavy and bombastic eruption featuring swinging clavinet and a compelling organ solo and in the end beautiful violin-Mellotron, goose bumps! Camel wrote progrock history with Lady Fantasy but never reached that level again ... in my opinion.