Only Solitaire: G. Starostin's Record Reviews, Reloaded c intro Notes



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HARBOUR OF TEARS (1996)
1) Irish Air; 2) Irish Air (instrumental reprise); 3) Harbour Of Tears; 4) Cybh; 5) Send Home The Slates; 6) Under The Moon; 7) Watching The Bobbins; 8) Generations; 9) Eyes Of Ireland; 10) Running From Paradise; 11) End Of The Day; 12) Coming Of Age; 13) The Hour Candle.
Honestly, there's not much to say about Harbour Of Tears after what has been said about Dust And Dreams. Here is another concept album about people going out West — this time, not from the Dust Bowl to California, though, but from the coasts of Ireland to the American shores: a voyage more remote in time and more extensive in space, and thus, liable for a bit more grave­ness and epicness. Expectedly, we add some Celtic overtones here, most noticeable on the ope­ning ʽIrish Airʼ — a theme first sung accappella by Mae McKenna, then performed by Andy on the flute, and finally, with a mighty opening howl, reproduced by him on electric guitar. It's a nice gradual transition from tender prettiness to wailing desperation, but it doesn't seem to have much of an original melody, and so, from the very start, you have everything that is right and everything that is wrong about this record in its first three minutes.
Right: the whole thing is permeated with quintessential Camel gloom, expressed in guitar tones, keyboard tones, chord sequences, build-ups, guitar solos, and vocals that sing about little other than toil, trouble, and grief caused by family separation rather than joy at the perspective of finding better life in a faraway country. Particularly good is that the sound is dominated by Lati­mer's acoustic/electric guitar and flute rather than keyboards (although Andy's new keyboardist, Mickey Sim­monds, is not much of a step up from Scherpenzeel).
Wrong: the overall level of energy seems just as low as on the previous few albums, and the monotonous mood leaves little space for surprises. The Celtic flavour is a nice touch, but you will hardly surprise anyone with a traditional Irish air in 1996, and besides, the flavour itself is really limited to only a few tracks — in addition to ʽIrish Airʼ, there's ʽEyes Of Irelandʼ, a stereotypical waltz that could just as well have been Lennon's ʽWorking Class Heroʼ, and a few brief instrumentals that are really more New Age than Celtic folk. The rest is standard fare late Camel dirge-rock. The most «progressive» of the tracks is arguably ʽComing Of Ageʼ, a multi-section composition with some tricky time signatures, but even that one culminates in a «Camel wail», with a howling two-chord riff as its culmination.
The biggest problem is that the album presents itself as a gut-wrenching emotional journey, but by that time, it had become such a typical routine for Latimer that you'd have to forget everything you ever knew about Camel to have your guts truly wrenched out. Burn down all context, and you might actually want to shed some tears in the harbour. Put all the context back, and you might feel yourself too jaded and weathered to spare even a single drop of salt water, because everything here is so strictly formulaic and predictable — predictable to the point that even after three listens, I cannot single out a single song in my memory. Okay, I guess ʽWatching The Bob­binsʼ has that suspenseful pause before the final line in each verse, that sort of makes it a little special. What else is new? Nothing.
Granted, if you are a big fan of Latimer's guitar playing, ʽThe Hour Candleʼ and a few other in­strumentals here are a must-have. I'm not sure how many chord sequences he uses that have not appeared on earlier Camel songs, but the blues soloing on ʽHour Candleʼ is tasteful and wonder­fully showcases his skill with sustained notes. Still not a match for ʽLiesʼ, though: too anthemic and pompous to really cut to the bone, if you ask me.
RAJAZ (1999)
1) Three Wishes; 2) Lost And Found; 3) The Final Encore; 4) Rajaz; 5) Shout; 6) Straight To My Heart; 7) Sahara; 8) Lawrence.
Rajaz is an Arabic poetry meter that has traditionally been associated with the slow, regular pace of camel hooves across the desert — meaning that, all of a sudden, Latimer must have woken up from a prolonged dreaming period and thought, «Hey! Last time we actually justified the band's name was on the album cover for Mirage! Why do I keep calling this outfit Camel if all I do is sing about the Berlin Wall, the Dust Bowl, and Irish immigration?» And there you have it — after years, if not decades, of detours, Rajaz is a conscious attempt to (a) explain why the band was originally named Camel after all and (b) get back to its (Camel's) original roots, or at least pro­vide some reasonable facsimile.
Of course, this is not really a nostalgic revisit of the styles and sounds of Mirage or any of those early records. Once the initial positive reaction of the «wow! finally something different and attention-grabbing!» is over, you begin to realize that this is still very much a solo Latimer album, and that he is still relying on the same chords and moods, and that Ton Scherpenzeel is back on keyboards, and that Latimer's wife is still writing the lyrics, and that the best tracks are all grouped in the record's first half, and that it still tends to slip back into moody, draggy, Harbour Of Tears-like inoffensiveness every now and then, and...
...and none of it really matters when the album opens with ʽThree Wishesʼ, a multi-part instru­mental that employs complex and frequent tempo changes, for once, and even incorporates ele­ments of jazz fusion — first time in how many years? Even the keyboards, which had been Camel's weakest link ever since Bardens' departure, have been diversified, with Scherpenzeel using a whole array of organs and synthesizers instead of stubbornly sticking to the plastic string-imitating tones of yesterday. The track has a nice buildup, gradually evolving from a desert-like atmosphere of solitary blueswailing lines over a dusty synth horizon to a pretty art-pop gallop through said desert and then to bits of tricky jazzy time signatures and, eventually, even a mysti­cally-magically distorted pseudo-Eastern guitar solo which is probably the closest Latimer ever came close to sounding like Steve Vai in his entire career.
That is just to give you the general idea that things are on the move — like I said, do not expect too much change, but expect just enough to feel a new surge of life after the seemingly endless rut of the past fifteen years. When the vocals enter the picture on ʽLost And Foundʼ, the impres­sion is disappointing — the same kind of tender hookless ballad that we already know so well — but once they go away, it's back to jerky-jazzy signatures and tonal diversity, with no less than three different approaches to guitar soloing, the last of which, heavy on sustained notes, seems to be taking a serious (and efficient) lesson from Robert Fripp. More stellar guitar work awaits on ʽThe Final Encoreʼ, and then, of course, there is the title track — yes, the one allegedly composed «on the camel meter», and while it does not exactly conjure visions of camels all by itself (pro­bably because it shows no Eastern influence whatsoever in the melody), it's still a good example of «sick and tired blues», culminating in a drawn-out slide solo that helps make the accompany­ing four-note «camel riff» even more hypnotic.
As we get to the second half, things begin to get less and less exciting, with more languid ballad­ry like ʽStraight To My Heartʼ and fewer of these exciting jazzy interludes. Still, ʽSaharaʼ is largely similar in structure to ʽThree Wishesʼ (same mish-mash of New Agey ambience, happy art-pop, and Eastern overtones), and if only the grand finale of ʽLawrenceʼ weren't so stretched out — Andy, come back to your senses, you're no David Lean! — it would have made for a more convincing conceptual conclusion; but it's a little too slow, too repetitive, and too scarce on ideas that weren't already musicalized on the first three tracks. In other words, sixty minutes of music is overkill: by all means, Latimer should have restricted himself to the usual running length of the LP era. We know he's a first-rate guitar player already.
Still, there is no denying it: Rajaz is the best Camel record since Nude, and although I am sure it could have been even better (if, for instance, Latimer had bothered bringing in a more refined keyboard player, or if he'd made it completely instrumental), it's one of those reassuring moments when you know that you have not waited around for nothing — the moment when cobwebs are shaken off, the sleeping giant awakens (or at least bats an eye), and suddenly you distinctly re­member why you used to single out the band in the first place. A definite thumbs up.
A NOD AND A WINK (2002)
1) A Nod And A Wink; 2) Simple Pleasures; 3) A Boy's Life; 4) Fox Hill; 5) The Miller's Tale; 6) Squigely Fair; 7) For Today; 8*) After All These Years.
Apparently, the idea of once again writing pretty, life-breathing music stuck with Latimer for a while, because this slightly belated, but logically continuous sequel to Rajaz (formally dedicated to the memory of Peter Bardens, who had died in early 2012) sounds every bit as lively as its predecessor, and sometimes even livelier. Again consisting of a few lengthy «progressive» tracks rather than a big bunch of short pop ones, A Nod And A Wink features two new band members (Guy LeBlanc on keyboards and Denis Clement on drums), plenty of musical ideas, and all of that uniquely Camel-esque melancholic atmosphere provided by a variety of Latimer guitar tones (rather than a single howl-at-the-moon one), flutes, acoustic and electronic keyboards.
The biggest difference from Rajaz is that this record is much more noticeably «English» in nature — where Rajaz took its inspiration from Arabian deserts, A Nod And A Wink has a sub­set of tunes very specifically loaded with British imagery, such as ʽFox Hillʼ (which wouldn't sound completely out of place on a classic early Genesis album like Nursery Cryme or, for that matter, Foxtrot) and ʽSquigely Fairʼ, a near-instrumental with alternating folksy / Elizabethan themes and even a very Jethro Tull-ian flute solo in the middle. This is not necessarily a good thing (immersing himself in Irish motifs did not help save Harbour Of Tears from being boring), but with the entire positive retro vibe going on, these influences are not ruined by stuffy produc­tion or too much dull instrumentation, so it's okay.
Like on Rajaz, the individual tunes do not seem to be too memorable; it is more important that they keep mutating, never letting a particular mediocre groove overstay its welcome before re­placing it with an aggressive guitar solo or a pensive acoustic part or a jazzy interlude or some­thing else — and that the tones, tempos, and moods constantly shift between tunes as well. ʽA Boy's Lifeʼ alone goes through an acoustic introduction, a heavenly anthemic theme with Andy on rainbow slide guitar, a gentle folksy waltz section, and a grand climax with a thick, juicy psychedelic solo: a prog lover's dream come true once more, in other words. The only bad news is that the band does not use enough tricky time signatures — but then again, think back on the old times: Camel were never really that big on 15/8 or 21/4, preferring to leave that side of the business to King Crimson, Genesis, and Gentle Giant.
As it is, it's fairly hard to explain why A Nod And A Wink sounds so good — its compositions do not linger too long in memory, its innovative potential is close to zero, and it does not even have a proper concept, let alone all the fox-hunting and village market references that are only valid for parts of the record. But somehow it just does. Even the slow, ponderous, anthemic ʽFor Todayʼ that ends the album with a choral sermon of "never give a day away / always live for to­day", somewhat echoing the old "never let go, never let go", sounds good, with Andy's «Gilmour-lite» bluesy soloing beginning in deeply tragic mode and then merging with the regal choir in an oddly uplifting-depressing symphonic sound, leaving us somewhat confused as to whether that admonition about never giving a day away is to be understood sincerely or ironically.
Still, if I truly had to single out one track, it would be ʽFox Hillʼ, for its ability to take the Camel sound and drag it out of its typically sluggish shell — the song is quite an agitated, spirited romp through several distinct musical parts, culminating in one of the most fabulous slide guitar solos I've ever had the pleasure of hearing from Latimer: catchy, yes, but most importantly, almost fox-like sly in execution. It is the kind of epic that was so sorely lacking for the previous twenty years, flexing a little muscle and sporting a bit of an ironic smile; essentially, there's always hope for any artist who, in the twilight years of his career, is still able to put out something like that.
Naturally, the album as a whole gets another thumbs up, and it is quite regrettable that Camel were not able to continue this winning streak — largely due to Latimer's own health problems, as he found himself battling bone marrow cancer and only managed to somewhat recover in the early 2010s. (The latest official «new» Camel release is a 2013 studio re-recording of the entire Snow Goose, which I have not heard and have very little intent to do so). And although this long break may be fatal, A Nod And A Wink definitely does not sound like a proper swan song re­cord may be expected to sound — because, of course, it was never meant to be Camel's last album, and we might yet get to hear another report on another day in dromedary life, provided there's any audience left in the 2010s to want to hear it.

CAPTAIN BEYOND





CAPTAIN BEYOND (1972)
1) Dancing Madly Backwards (On A Sea Of Air); 2) Armworth; 3) Myopic Void; 4) Mesmerization Eclipse; 5) Raging River Of Fear; 6) Thousand Days Of Yesterdays (intro); 7) Frozen Over; 8) Thousand Days Of Yesterdays (Time Since Come And Gone); 9) I Can't Feel Nothin' (part 1); 10) As The Moon Speaks (To The Waves Of The Sea); 11) Astral Lady; 12) As The Moon Speaks (Return); 13) I Can't Feel Nothin' (part 2).
This band, and their debut album in particular, seem to have acquired somewhat of a cult status over the years — as usual, once one becomes sick and tired of all the predictable art-prog-rock masterpieces of the early 1970s, the discovery of something seemingly special under the surface is always a source of joy, and yes, you can construe Captain Beyond as a band that had some­thing special about them if you really put your heart and mind to it.
The band's background does not look terribly auspicious: a «second-rate supergroup» assembled from past members of early Deep Purple (singer Rod Evans, whose main claim to fame was the popularity of ʽHushʼ), Iron Butterfly (bass player Lee Dorman; also guitar player Larry ʽRhinoʼ Reinhardt, who only really played with the band on one of their albums, and far from the best one at that), and Johnny Winter's band (drummer Bobby Caldwell). All of these people were known to be «okay» at their jobs, but you wouldn't want to accuse any of them of having a unique style or songwriting genius or anything. So how could they all get together and make a record that not only would not stink, but would even be capable of getting a cult following?
Essentially, by sounding like a slightly softer, slightly more «sincere» (rather than openly post-modern-cynical) version of Blue Öyster Cult. On the whole, Captain Beyond could be classified as hard rock with a psychedelic edge, relying on a combination of heavy distorted riffs, spaced-out guitar soloing, and half-macho, half-stoned vocals (to acquire which Rod Evans had to smoke triple amounts of pot and grow himself an extra pair of testicles — at least, if you compare this style with Deep Purple circa 1968) suggesting that only strong, well-endowed males with big swords and hairy chests deserve to go to psychedelic heaven (think also of Hawkwind, although Captain Beyond are more song-based than jam-based, and sound more like a tight rock band than a bizarre psychedelic orchestra).
This can theoretically be a fun suggestion if you don't take it too seriously, and, indeed, the record is quite pleasant. Side A is essentially a collection of loosely joined not-too-fast riff-rockers; Side B is technically more conceptual, with two mini-suites consisting of several short movements, but there's not that much difference in terms of atmosphere, and there are soft acoustic interludes on both sides. The band also experiments with time signatures (the rhythmic pattern on ʽDancing Madly Backwardsʼ, for instance, does suggest a bit of moonwalking), delays and echoes (ʽMyopic Voidʼ owes a heavy debt to Jimi), and occasionally tries to build up some suspense (ʽAs The Moon Speaksʼ, probably influenced by Electric Ladyland and In The Court Of The Crimson King at the same time) — in other words, spending half an hour with Captain Beyond is anything but a boring experience, and it is nice to see how those guys managed to bring out the best in each other where few people probably suspected that «best» existed in the first place.
Unfortunately, the songs do not lend themselves easily to detailed descriptions, largely because there isn't much diversity — a bit slower, a bit faster, okay — and because the riffs, while defi­nitely «crafted» rather than just tossed off at random, are not awesome by themselves or even tremendously original. Everything is perfectly enjoyable while it's on, and there's plenty of headbang potential in numbers like ʽI Can't Feel Nothin'ʼ or ʽRaging River Of Fearʼ, but all of these elements had been well exploited before; in fact, the album looks positively archaic for 1972, because this heavy-psycho style was already present on plenty of «nuggets» from the US and UK scenes circa 1969-70 — yet, unlike Blue Öyster Cult, these guys were not smart enough to turn the whole thing onto itself and give it a smarmy, ironic, self-interpretative edge.
They were smart enough to give the songs a slightly paranoid edge: with the exception of a few starry-eyed misfires (ʽThousand Days Of Yesterdaysʼ), the album sounds like the band is perma­nently on the run from something, be it a «raging river of fear» or a «myopic void». This is pro­bably the only angle from which the record could ever be loved by anyone — with enough listens, it can become a «Manifesto of the Impossibility of Escaping», which certainly goes against the common trend in that era's progressive rock. But it is still difficult for me to lock myself onto that vibe, because the ingredients aren't fully adequate to the task; and, for that matter, Rod Evans is just not that good a singer to properly convey paranoidal horror.
Ultimately, the guys from Iron Butterfly are the main winners here, supplying decent riffs, mo­destly energetic solos, and (sometimes) expressive bass lines (Lee Dorman is at his best on the softer numbers, most notably ʽAs The Moon Speaksʼ), and because of their honest work and the general appeal of the record, I give it a thumbs up without too many reservations. But do not really expect some unique forgotten masterpiece — I'd say this is about as good as the actual Iron Butterfly at their best (which, admittedly, happened rarely).
SUFFICIENTLY BREATHLESS (1973)
1) Sufficiently Breathless; 2) Bright Blue Tango; 3) Drifting In Space; 4) Evil Men; 5) Starglow Energy; 6) Distant Sun; 7) Voyages Of Past Travellers; 8) Everything's A Circle.
Although the band's second album was recorded less than a year after the debut, it already re­flected some serious changes in the lineup: keyboard player Reese Wynans was brought in, along with Guille Garcia on various (mostly Latin/African) percussion, and original drummer Bobby Caldwell was replaced by the much less known Marty Rodriguez. Additionally, Lee Dorman emerged as the only active songwriter , pretty much responsible for the entire structure and sound of the record. The result is fairly obvious: they drift farther away into the direction of symphonic-progressive rock, «cosmic conscience» and stuff, leaving much of the hard rock baggage behind, so there's just no way one could call Sufficiently Breathless a balanced mix of hard-rock and art-rock, and this is probably why the album usually tends to get a bad rap compared to its predeces­sor (even if there's still plenty of heaviness drifting about).
As somebody who likes the heavy-prog sound of Captain Beyond without being floored by it, I must say that from such a standpoint, the two records, although sounding quite different, are just about equal in overall quality. This here is pleasantly melodic, modestly catchy, adequately voca­lized, intelligently composed rock music, already a little outdated even for 1973 (but perhaps more easily appreciated in retrospect, as our perspective of time becomes more and more flat­tened and distorted), but totally inoffensive and occasionally charming in its hippie idealism. Its only real problem is contextual — everything that you hear here, you can hear done a little (or a lot) better by other acts (some of them already defunct by the year 1973).
Thus, the title track is an acoustic anthem in the vein of Crosby, Stills & Nash (except for the dis­torted psychedelic guitar solo that combines real nice with the acoustic rhythm track), a clever enough opener to pour some sunshine into your living room, but neither the instrumental exube­rance nor the chirpy vocal harmonies are on the required level to push the whole thing off the ground. ʽDrifting In Spaceʼ is a potentially great Latin rocker with a cool «exploding fireworks» lead guitar riff introducing each sung verse, but none of the verses is even resolved properly — they build up the tension all right, but they never explode it! And what's up with the quiet jazzy electric piano solo? It's nice, but in a song like this, it could only serve as a taster for a kick-ass guitar extravaganza, which never comes — it's like this whole song was thought of as a counter-example for aspiring songwriters: «here's what happens if you have some cool ideas but fail to bring them up to logical conclusions».
Pretty much every song offers something, but the something is never enough. Kick-ass guitar extravangzas finally arrive on ʽEvil Menʼ, a slow funk-rocker with Rhino milking the wah-wah for all it's worth, but the song's potentially fabulous heavy riff is inexplicably kept in the faraway background most of the time (maybe they thought that if they put it up front, they'd be sued by Deep Purple for ripping off ʽSpace Truckin'ʼ which it somehow resembles, but come on). ʽStar­glow Energyʼ has a great moody start, with probably Rod Evans' finest vocal performance on the album, but despite all the soulfulness that they try to muster, the song still never finds a proper climactic peak — the guitar solos are too quiet, the mix is too muddy and preoccupied with psychedelic sound effects, the fadeout arrives unexpectedly and again leaves the impression of something unaccomplished and unsatisfactory.
And yet, I am still surprised at how every song here sounds organic, warm, and tasteful — few things are easier than being embarrassed and angered at the unimaginative, derivative, inadequate pretense of a second-/third-generation art-prog outfit, but maybe it is precisely because Captain Beyond take so few risks that they consistently deliver this very decent vibe, almost free of cor­niness even when they tackle formulaic lyrical subjects (maybe it's just that Rod Evans, whose voice is not strong enough for operatic behavior, sounds like an honestly concerned human rather than a cocky showman even when he asks you "what is wrong with this world of mine, falling in a spiral?"). This way, although I'm pretty sure that in a week from now, I will not be able to re­member a single note from this album, the overall impression will still remain as a vague cloud of positive vibrations, and so, here is a thumbs up rating while that cloud is still holding together, nice, juicy, and thick.

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