THE SNOW GOOSE

"Music inspired by The Snow Goose", Paul Gallico's book. That is how this album was presented in its cover. Maybe Gallico didn't want his most successful and famous book to be directly associated with some music composed by any Rock band. I don't know why this happened then. But maybe this musical association with his book could have helped him to sell even more books. Anyway, he died in 1976. I never have read none of his books, and it was only because the music of this album was inspired by his most successful and famous book that I knew about him. I also realized that other of his books was used (with his permission) to make a film, "The Poseidon's Adventure", in 1972. It was a very successful film, and I saw it, but I realized a lot of time later that that book was also written by him. Maybe he didn't trust Rock bands or he didn't like Rock music, or he thought that his most successful and famous book wasn't going to be treated with respect or that it was going to be associated with a bad musical project. In my opinion, this didn't happen.

This is an album without lyrics (due to Gallico's oposition), consisting only of instrumental music, apart from some wordless vocals in some parts of the album. With very good Progressive Music arrangements, influenced by Classical Music, and with some orchestral arrangements by David Bedford, which work very well, this album is a very enjoyable listening experience. It really works very well as a "musical narration". Very melodic. Some musical themes re-appear in some parts of the album. Maybe some of the synthesisers's sounds sound a bit dated now, but the arrangements are very good. Some of the best parts of this album are the songs titled as "Rhayader", "Rhayader Goes to Town" and "La Princesse Perdue".

A very good album from CAMEL, recorded and released fourty years ago, which deserves a five stars rating from me.