RAIN DANCES

Slowly sliding downhill. Rain Dances is not a bad album as long as you don´t compare to the previous four. When it came out it was a big disappointment for all fans I knew at the time. After Doug Ferguson left, the chemistry was also gone, I guess. Not that Richard Sinclair is a bad replacement: technically he is very good and certainly had a better voice than anyone in the group. But it seemed that the strong bond between the musicians was cracking and the music consequently suffered with it. Unfortunately Rains Dances was only the beginning of a confusing and bad time for Camel.

Some songs do work very well, like the opener First Flight. The addition of Mel Collins on sax was also a plus for the overall sound. Still they could not deliver an even work like they did before so easily. And Highways of The Sun is definitely that one song that should never, never be recorded by Camel. That pop pastiche never takes off and spoils any continuity this album might have had if it was not included here.

Conclusion: some fine songs, but as a whole quite inferior to what you´d expect from a band of this calibre. Good CD, sometimes very good, but definitely not essential. 3 stars.