CAMEL

This is my most favourite Camel album and that will have everything to do with the fact that Camel is a bit of a mellow symphonic band and this is actually their most aggressive and energetic album of all times. And that's how I like music best in general.

And this is already evident with the first track of this album: Slow yourself down. Fantastic opener of this great album played with lots of passion (4,25*).

Next is Mystic Queen showing the bands more ballad like side especially in the beginning, later on the song becomes more diverse with some very fine melodic passages (3,75*).

Third up is Six Ate and here the band shows its ultimate versatility with this bluesy track. The whole band is doing an excellent job here both individually as in team performance (4*).

Seperation starts pretty energetic until a mellow chorus surprises suddenly. But after this the band really gets going. Another cracker making this album a true classic. Superb ending of a great song (4*).

And then the best is yet to come ! Never let go has always been the all time favourite song by this band for me. Never heard Latimer surpass the solo effort he is doing on this one. Love it forever (4,5*).

Unfortunately the last two songs, Curiosity (3,5*) and Arubaluba (3,75*) can't sustain this huge level but also these two are still fairly good songs.

On this release there are also a radio version of Never let go and a live performance of Homage to the God of Light. These are bonus tracks so I will not count them in the score but they are very fine additions.

The final score for one of the best debuts in prog history is no surprise probably and can only be four stars. Even though they made some nice albums after this, it has always been their magnum opus where my personal taste is concerned.