THE SNOW GOOSE (RE-RECORDING)

I love Camel - I've seen them live sooo many times and have always come away from gigs with a huge grin on my face, loving the fact that they still exist. Of course over the last couple of years gigs have been a bit sparse due to Andy Latimer's illness, so the rerecording and subsequent tour to promote the Snow Goose was welcome indeed. Except: I can't help thinking that a new recording of a classic album is a bit pointless. If there were real flaws in the original I could understand it, but the fact is that the (original) Snow Goose was (is) a masterpiece - writing, performance and production.

This new recording is great naturally, and the new /extended bits are interesting, but at the same time slightly annoying. Like I said, I love Camel and really want to support everything they do, but they're messing with a part of my own personal history here and it feels wrong, and a bit sad. I know, I should just play the first version and stick to that.

After a lot of consideration I've gone for 4 stars, just because the original material is so good, and so this is great material as well, naturally. But, please Andy, leave Moonmadness alone.