MIRAGE

My introduction to Camel, I bought it without knowing anything about them except that they were Prog. I was blown away by what I heard.

Lady Fantasy is everything a Prog epic should be. It has beautiful melodic lines, extremely hard rocking moments, shifts in tempo, time signature and mood and the lyrics... aren't terrible. I am almost equally fond of the Tolkein inspired suite Nimrodel, which features my favorite keyboard solo ever. I am personally a big fan of flute driven progressive rock, and this album is a shining example of that.

For me, the least interesting track is, oddly enough, the opener Freefall, which I feel falls a bit flat and sounds rather dated.

I would be remiss if I did not comment on the bonus material included on the reissue. It's over a half hour worth of extra music, and while the version of Lady Fantasy isn't that different from the original, it's such a good song that I don't mind listening to it twice at all. I will always be at a loss to figure out why Camel was relegated to the second tier of Prog, rather than elevated to the heights of Genesis or ELP, but such is life.