NUDE

After the disaster called "I Can See Your House From Here", CAMEL went back to writing conceptual album in the vein of "Snow Goose", the practice they were to continue on later albums as well. "Nude" is considerably better effort than the predecessor, but still don't expect much! It starts off with two crappy unpromising pop numbers, but luckily the remaining material delves into largely instrumental music. Apart from a couple of very good moments filled with fusion-like sound of guitar solos ("Docks", "Beached") that reminds me of some of the works done at the same period by Yugoslavian fusion masters LEB I SOL or SMAK, the album maintains a mediocre "new age" arrangement of the latter-days PINK FLOYD or ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, or even SKY (notice the guest appearance of Herbie Flowers!). Even quite a good song "Lies" sounds more like DIRE STRAITS or Chris Rea than the real progressive music. It's probably me, but I don't buy this kind of 1980s production, especially when played by old classic prog rock champions. And to support the fact that "Nude" is not the big "come back" of CAMEL, one only needs to hear the upcoming disaster No. 2 - "The Single Factor"! Overall, it is not up to the standards set with earlier albums and is surely not recommended, although it is fairly listenable musical work.