Artist: Camel
Album: Stationary Traveller
GENRE...: Progressive Rock
LABEL...: Camel Productions SCENE DATE.: 2015-12-19
bITRATE.: 253 kbps avg STORE DATE.: 2004-00-00
ENCODER.: LAME 3.98.4 -V 0 TRACKS.....: 11
SiZE....: 88.04MB SOURCE.....: CD
- TRACKLIST
1 In The Arms Of Waltzing 2:16
Frauleins
2 Refugee 3:45
3 Vopos 5:30
4 Cloak And Dagger Man 3:51
5 Stationary Traveller 5:32
6 West Berlin 5:07
7 Fingertips 4:26
8 Missing 4:17
9 After Words 1:59
10 Long Goodbyes 5:13
11 Pressure Points (Extended Mix) 6:14
Total Playtime: 48:10
URL..: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stationary_Traveller
- NOTES
CD, HDCD, Album, Remastered
One of the most underrated albums of the eighties. By 1984 Andy Latimer is
the only member of the original line up. The line up on ST includes Kayak's
Ton Scherpenzeel on keyboards and David Paton from TAPP on bass on most of
the tracks. This version of Camel sounds slightly different than the band of
the seventies. Since the release of Nude the songs are mainly built on the
splendid guitar melodies of Latimer. The cover art of this album takes you
back to Berlin at the time when the wall was built. Stationary traveller may
be a concept album but its concept isn't dominating the music. You can
easily listen to the fine songs separatly without digging deep into the
lyrics, although the lyrics explain why there isn't an uplifting mood. Not
all is sad, "Berlin" and "Long goodbyes" reveal some optimism. Albums that
were released during the eighties al have a similar production and this
album is no exception. Big drum sounds, electronic drums, repetitive
keyboard sounds and rhythmic bass lines are typical for the eighties.
"Stationary traveller" is a fine album, not a masterpiece of progressive
rock like "Mirage" or "Moonmadness" but still a very decent, enjoyable
progressive pop album, one of the better efforts of the band. Songs like
"West Berlin", "Fingertips" and "Refugee" may seem rather cold at the first
spin but after a while you'll notice a lot of hidden emotion. One of the
reasons for this are the vocals of Latimer who's singing abilities has
matured a lot when compared to earlier efforts. Fortunately there are some
dazzling instrumentals as well like "Pressure points", "Stationary
traveller" and "Missing". Though it would take another 8 years (!) to
release an album, these instrumentals are similar to the instrumentals on
Dust and dreams. Amazing how a song like "Vopos" is able to create an
atmosphere of military thread. "Cloak and dagger man" shows the band in a
pretty heavy mood with a big symphonic sound and a splendid keyboard solo
from Scherpenzeel. Throughout the album the influence of Scherpenzeel is
noticeable as he puts some colour to the music. He even wrote one little
instrumental which fits in perfectly. The vocals of Chris Rainbow on "Long
goodbyes" makes a comparison with The Alan Parsons Project inevitable. This
nostalgic song is perfect for closing the album but there's not one song on
this album which isn't a good one. The only negative remark I would make is
that this album's quite short in length. In the late eighties, I been
searching for a cd copy of this album for years. Listening to the album I
still know why I kept on searching.