Customer Reviews

Single Factor

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Single Factor is in my opinion Camel's best album. Heroes is a fantastic song: lead vocal by David Paton is excellent and backing vocals by one of the greatest voices ever, Chris Rainbow. Both have also been part of the Alan Parsons Project. Another highlight is 'You Are The One'. Except for bass and drums, Andrew Lattimer does it all on this song. Furthermore I especially like 'Camelogue', 'Today's Goodbye' and 'A Heart's Desire'. Maybe old-fashioned Camel fans prefer other albums, but I like this one because there is more singing on this one than on other Camel albums.

"The Single Factor" is doomed to be tossed into the same dustbin of history as ELP's "Love Beach", "Big Generator" by Yes and many other albums that great prog bands recorded in attempts at commercial success while utterly failing to please the fans. Camel, like everyone else, had a go of it and this album was the '80's result. And yeah, this isn't anything to write home about; Camel never were able to come up with anything anywhere near commercial despite a few big hooks and a fairly accessible late '70's album called "I Can See Your House From Here". But "Single Factor" isn't the embarrassing disaster it's often made out to be, either. 'Manic' and 'Camelogue' are, in my opinion, two of the all-time greatest Camel recordings. There's decent moments elsewhere on this disc, but nothing comes close to the quality of those two tracks, which make this whole damned cd worth buying.

True, Andy Latimer's the only REAL Camel guy on it, but this album is unfairly dumped-on by Camel fans. The whole 2nd side is gorgeous, especially "Sasquatch" & "A Heart's Desire/End Peace," "Manic" is an Xtremely angry-sounding tale of schizophrenia, & "Camelogue" & "Today's Goodbye" R at least pleasant & intresting. The 1st side's more of a problem: "No Easy Answer" is OK, & "Heroes" is nice ... but the rest IS a significant drop-off in quality from previous albums. So play the 2nd side, Njoy the guest work by Peter Bardens & Anthony Phillips, & take it 4 what it is -- perhaps not as "progressive" as the band's hard-core fans would like, but still real nice. I think Latimer held-up pretty well under the commercial pressure from his record company. This is as good as the earlier BREATHLESS and I CAN SEE YOUR HOUSE FROM HERE, if not as solid as SNOW GOOSE or NUDE....

This was a strange time for Camel--the only real illusion this album has to being a Camel album is that Andrew Latimer is on every track. The one highlight is Sasquatch. Peter Bardens comes back to the fold to play some nice keyboards, supported by Anthony Phillips' (Genesis) twelve-string and Simon Phillips'(Jon Anderson's Animation, The Who, Mike Rutherford, etc.) amazing drum playing. I got this album mostly because Anthony and Simon were on it, and thought there would be more great moments. The official Camel web site talks about how fun this album was to make, and that energy does come through. I just wish some more good music would have come out of it. Camel is a great band, with their first 5 albums being extreme classics. This album is mostly for someone wanting the entire Camel catalogue.

OK, so it's not the classic Camel sound, but it is still better than the stuff you heard on the radio back then. It was a way for me to sell Progressive rock to commercial music listenners and it worked. They can understand it, and it has some great licks that are a part of the Camel sound. Then they buy a more progressive album like Nudes, and now are into progressive rock or they just like it. With this album you can play it at parties were you have diverse groups of music lovers.

Sadly this excellent band had to make some concessions to the powers-that-be of the record industry. Because of that this album and the following -and better- ¨Stationary Traveller¨ were released.
Particularly this one was named ¨The Single Factor¨ ironically honouring the whim the record company had to achieve that single FM-hit song which could raise some money.
Just forget this poor work. No band is perfect.

Great to hear Andy hook up with a couple of the pilot guys on this album. As others have mentioned Heroes is one of the strongest tracks but I think the whole album has many great moments. Lullabye is short but very sweet, one of my favourite melodies and vocals from Andy. I think its unfair to compare this with the bands earlier works as this is a soft rock album and a good one at that.

The first 2 songs on this album are so bad it made my jaw drop. This is Camel's tenth studio album. The original LP was about 38 minutes long. There is one bonus track bringing the total time up to 41 minutes. Sound quality is very clear and bright.

This is called the Single Factor because only Andy Lattimer from the original group remains. There is a note that says drummer Andy Ward is not on the album because of a severe hand injury. Rumor is that is not the real reason.

This album has a mumber of prominent progressive rock guest stars: Anthony Phillips (original guitarist of Genesis), Francis Monkman, Dave Mattacks and a couple of guys from the one of the Alan Parsons Project albums. Except for some nice twelve string playing from Philips, a nice sax part from Mel Collins and bad, corporate rock vocals from the guys from Alan Parsons, the guest stars have very little impact on this album.

This album is Camel's attempt to get in on the progressive, corporate rock style of music of the time. This type of music was becoming very popular, and groups and record companies were looking to cash in. It is similar to what Alan Parson and Asia were doing at the time. If you like Asia or Parson's Eye In the Sky, you will probably like this CD.

Most of the vocal tracks on this album are pretty bad. There are a couple, like Hero, that have some good parts.

The only thing that keeps this album from being a complete waste is the two instrumental tracks. Sasquatch is one of the most interesting things Camel has done. Selva is OK, but sounds like a low rent copy of the Snow Goose.

There is a 30 second track called Lullaby. He didn't to write a specific lullaby. Camel's previous album, Nude, was pretty much a snooze.

Pete Bardens had left Camel three albums ago, over artistic differences. He went on to do some decent New Age music. In the nineties, he formed a band called Mirage, with Ward and members of Caravan. They went on tour performing Caravan and Camel songs. He reformed Mirage with studio musicians, toured and released a concert album called Speed of Light Live or Mirage, Germany 1996. He died in 2002.

Lattimer's Camel would put out one more studio CD in the eighties (plus live CD). He would then move to California and form a new Camel. Some of those albums, like Rajaz are great.