The Snow Goose [IMPORT] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Camel

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 10, 2002)
• Original Release Date: 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import, Original recording remastered
• Label: Polygram UK
• ASIN: B00005V1B2
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #49,414 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
UK reissue of 1975 album, remastered from the original tapes & includes 5 previously unreleased bonus tracks 'Flight of the Snow Goose' (single edit), 'Rhayader' (single edit), 'Flight of the Snow Goose' (alternate single edit), 'Rhayader Goes To Town' (recorded live at The Marquee Club) & 'The Snow Goose/Freefall' (recorded live at The Marquee Club). 2002.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this band, May 26, 2003

By	saserfrac (Ventura, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

"Mirage" was a risk for me. I'm cautious about the music I buy, and I had never heard of Camel before purchasing "Mirage". This band deserves to be better known, I was spellbound by Mirage's entrancing melodies.
Now I have "The Snow Goose", equally deserving of Mirage's greatness. Camel is a band that can create just as much feeling as a band centered around a vocalist, displaying this ability superbly in "The Snow Goose". I get absorbed into Camel's compositions with every listen, I can't wait to hear "MoonMadness", Mirage's supposed close counter-part.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Snow Goose soars!, December 16, 2003

By	Robert Cossaboon "devil doll" (The happy land of Walworth, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Welcome to Camel's third album, Snow Goose, a nice concept album based on---the same novel about how a woman who finds a wounded bird and takes it to Rhayader. The bird and he become friends, and the woman falls in love with the old hunchback. The climax of the book and the album is Rhayader's courageous (and tragic) act of courage at Dunkirk, as he rescues countless lives while the snow goose shows him the way amidst gunfire. Although I've never read the book, now that I have grasped the plot, Camel's album is all the more poignant. The Snow Goose is a true progressive album, as it embraces so many moods and musical styles, and still manages to retain a central theme. As a whole, the music is much wispier than Mirage or their debut. The one-two punch of Rhayader/Rhayader Goes To Town is the undisputed highlight. This is a song for every taste, be it balls-out guitar soloing or light bouncy flute-driven sequences. Another great song is Migration, a nice jazzy piece that has one of the only vocal parts (actually, it's more like laid back scatting) on the album. Flight of the Snow Goose, has some interesting guitar-play from Latimer, but it is never forefront; this is more a drum-keyboard song. Preparation/Dunkirk are also noteworthy just for the sheer moods they evoke. Bardens's keyboard and is very effective in creating an ominous tension in Preparation before the all-out bash of Dunkirk. La Princesse Perdue is an extended reworking of the theme of The Flight, with some majestic horns added Latimer's solo is a nice sort of farewell to the listener. The bonus tracks mostly show early stages of the Snow Goose, especially the Rhayader songs. The highlight is the live version of the Snow Goose song, and it's segue into Freefall. The liner notes describe how Camel had originally, before they settled on Snow Goose, wanted to do a concept album on Hesse's Siddhartha; they had actually recorded a song called Riverman for the album, but it never saw the light of day. That would have been a worthy addition for this CD. This, of course, is minor niggling over a masterpiece.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Underrated, March 7, 2004

By	Perbes (Madrid, Spain) - See all my reviews

Camel are one of the most overlooked progressive bands in the world, probably because their music is mostly instrumental - this cd is a fair example, and their songs are not catchy. What a shame that most people ignore this great band. I've always preferred them to others from the progressive field like Yes (Jon Anderson's voice always grated on my nerves, sorry).

The Snow Goose is simply one of Camel's major achievements. The title had to be slightly changed to 'Music inspired by....' to prevent legal actions by Paul Gallico, who wrongly assumed Camel were involved with the tobacco company. The stuff here is based on this book though.

The songs (Most of them pretty short) follow the narrative, and none of them is a throwaway. The bonus tracks featured are nice too, even if it's hard sometimes to tell the differences with the former release. The songs taken from the Marquee are outstanding like in the other Camel reeditions.