DUST AND DREAMS

"Stationary Traveller" was a prophetic title as just after the Camel was stopped by a lawsuite for seven years. After fixing the legal issue Latimer came back with a new lineup including only Colin Bass, Ton Scherpenzeel (Kayak) and Davit Paton from the previous ones.

This is the first album released by Camel Productions, the label setup by Andy Latimer, and the album didn't have unfortunately a good advertising. This means that I knew of its existence in the shop when I went to purchase Harbour of Tears.

It's a concept album, but I didn't realise it immediately even if I have seen the John Ford's movie inspired by the Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath". The Big depression and the meigration through the route 66 is the same that a lot of people did in those years, one of them Woody Guthrie.

Unfortunately the album is not so solid as the book and the first half of the movie. The theme of emigrants will be better exploited in Harbour of Tears. The limit of Dust and Dreams stays in the high number of short songs. Even if they can be meant as story's chapters, they don't give the idea of a concept album. At the end I think that "Go West" would have been enough as tribute to the Nobel's winner book. I think it's also the best song of the album.

Of course there is Latimer's guitar and I really like Bass and Scherpenzeel, but this album is a step below both its predecessor Stationary Traveller and its successor Harbour of Tears. It's not a poor thing like The Single Factor but neither a masterpiece.

3 honest stars.