MIRAGE

Mirage is another Camel classic and is their first essential album! This album has the Camel style that later albums will embrace more fully,

"Freefall" is a fast paced rocker with solid rock riffs and fantastic musicianship, but there isn't too much in the way of progressing until the last third of the track where things cool down a bit and reveal a playful and optimistic sounding guitar motif with a few variations, followed by a neat guitar solo.

"Supertwister" starts with beautiful flute. This track is full of energy and surprises on first listening, but this is overall a flute dominated track. Short, but very nice.

"Nimrodel / The Procession / The White Rider" is a very interesting suite with lots of different atmospheres all coming together. The themes travel from imperial marching to desert landscape sounding guitar dominated passages to fast paced space jam to acoustic beauty. It all seems to work, but if I pay very close attention it seems to lack some of the cohesiveness of later works, but that doesn't detract from the enjoyability of this track at all. Very dynamic.

"Earthrise" is a playful sounding track with some great catchy synth melodies and is overall an enjoyable jam. I detect some randomness in the composition, but it is overall a jam, so precision in that era isn't truly important.

The centerpiece, "Lady Fantasy", is without a doubt the best track here and has become one of Camel's signature tracks. Lots of area here for their desert/space sounding melodies to really develop in full. Camel's unique musical voice shines through proudly on this track. One band that I could liken this song to is a much more progressive sounding The Doors.

This is absolutely one of Camel's best records, and it's terrific to hear a truly original symphonic progressive rock band. The music here isn't at all like Yes or Genesis; it has much more of an organic feel and as I've said before, it has kind of a desert feel or a feel of abandonment, and I don't think anyone could pull of this sound quite like Camel manages to. The symphonic style of Camel has always reminded me of earlier Canterbury scene bands. I highly recommend this to prog loving peers.