A SECRET PLACE

Mirage's debut amounts to little more than a CAMEL tribute album. At this point they are not so much playing "In the spirit of" CAMEL as to the letter of CAMEL. They are content to intermingle blatant riff-offs from classics like "Lunar Sea", "A Song within a Song", "Harbour of Tears" and "Echoes" to the extent that the actual tracks contain very little development of their own. They create a soulless CAMEL soundscape that conjures precious little of the original emotion while failing to establish any credibility in their own right. These guys can play, but virtuosity in itself is not the name of the game.

"For Andy" delves into fusion in a way that Mr Latimer only did sporadically, and hints at the direction taken on subsequent releases, but it's still pretty tentative. The female vocals do not suit the style and mar tracks like "Nothing on TV tonight" and "The UFO trip". The finale "Alien Attack-Supernova" shows more than experimentation and a willingness to spread out. It even has CRIMSON ish heavy guitars. But ultimately it lacks both the continuity of a compelling suite and the import of an epic. This may have something to do with being essentially silent for the latter half of its 20+ minutes.

In all, at this point the band sits in a place best kept secret. That changes dramatically a few years later.