MOONMADNESS

This album probably was a comeback from the classic prog for me. After months of venturing in (mostly) prog metal area, somehow I decided to try some good ol’ classic prog again and incidentally run to this album, which happened to be the only Camel album available at the store (lucky me?). Anyway, I was fortunate to get this album because not only it’s a great introduction album to Camel for me, this album has somehow also awakened my…uh, ‘will’ to discover the greatness of classic prog once again. I’m not sure how it works, but that’s what happened!

So what’s so special about this album that somehow able to ‘ensnare’ me into the classic prog again? I’d say the instrumental works. Yes, ‘Moonmadness’ is an album that full of great instrumental parts, from the opening track ‘Aristillus’, some parts on ‘Song within a Song’, the enjoyable and pleasant song ‘Chord Change’, or the awesome ‘Lunar Sea’, each songs features lots of excellent compositions and instrumental works (keyboard, bass, drum, flute, guitar-you name them, they are all beautiful!). Not to discredit the vocals, while they’re not really my favorite type of vocal, they’re okay. All the vocals are not the high-pitched type ones; therefore they’re not a problem to me at all. In fact, I enjoy all the songs here; there’s not a single weak track here although I do enjoy the instrumental parts more than the vocals most of the times.

Overall, this is a fantastic album! If not because of this album, I probably wouldn’t have discovered the greatness of the classic prog era again. I’d say that this is probably the classic prog album that I enjoyed the most so far. Four and a half stars, highly recommended for prog fans, old and new!