Camel: Moonmadness (1976)

Camel, unlike Yes, ELP, Genesis, etc., was a British prog rock band that never really got the fame they deserved, but they made some great music that’s truly worth having. Certainly Camel might have not been the most original band on the face of the planet, as influences from such bands as Genesis, Pink Floyd, and Focus were rather obvious, but they were a big influence on many lesser known prog rock bands to come in its wake.

Moonmadness is Camel’s fourth album and is regarded by many as the band’s crowning achievement, and I have no argument over that. The band at that time featured guitarist and flutist Andy Latimer, drummer Andy Ward, bassist Doug Ferguson, and keyboardist Peter Bardens. Ferguson, Latimer, and Ward handles the vocals. This was the last album to feature Doug Ferguson, after this album, the band was to have a very unstable lineup and albums of varying quality.

Moonmadness is basically Camel in a nutshell. It’s a very easy album to get in to and I very highly recommend it to all newcomers. The album opens with “Aristillus” which is an instrumental number with some great spacy Moog synthesizer. “A Song Within a Song” is Camel at their best. It goes through several changes, and of course, a Moog solo that seems so common in prog rock albums.

The instrumental “Chord Changes” is a rather pleasant number that’s a bit like Pink Floyd circa Dark Side of the Moon. Perhaps the album’s real crowning achievement is the instrumental “Lunar Sea”. The guitar and synth solos are just simply amazing, and I love the spacy feel to the song, especially the use of string synths.

There are two different covers to this album. One, featured on the American pressing on Janus Records, is my favorite, which features silly artwork of a camel in an astronaut’s suit on the moon. The other features some strange artwork of a landscape with a bush, cattails, a pond with a fish hopping out of the water (this artwork was also included as the gatefold to the American LP of the camel in a spacesuit cover). I never could quite understand why American versions of albums often had different covers to the British versions (for example, the American verses the British versions of Van der Graaf Generator’s The Least We Can Do is Wave to Each Other, Gentle Giant’s Three Friends and Octopus, Rare Bird’s self-entitled debut and As Your Mind Flies By, and Yes’ self-entitled debut and Time and a Word are several examples). Regardless, I feel Moonmadness is an absolute must if you’re a prog rock fan. Essential stuff you should not go without.
– Peter Bardens: Organ, Mini Moog and ARP Odyssey synthesizers, Roland string synthesizer, Hohner clavinet, piano, electric piano
– Andy Ward: drums, vocals
– Andy Latimer: guitar, flute, vocals
– Doug Ferguson: bass, vocals