Having held their floor through the twister of punk, Surrey prog-rock stalwarts Camel started the 80s in model with Nude: an formidable idea LP based mostly on the true story of Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda, who believed World Conflict II was nonetheless ongoing when he was rescued from a distant Philippine island in 1974. It will not be the final time Camel tackled political and emotional turmoil within the 80s, as 1984’s Stationary Traveller would go on to point out.
Take heed to Stationary Traveller now.
Nude broached the UK High 40, however Camel’s authentic drummer, Andy Ward, stop in its wake and the band duly splintered. Underneath strain from Decca Information for successful single, Camel’s prime mover, Andy Latimer, responded by recording the atypically pop-oriented The Single Issue with an array of gifted sessioneers together with ex-Genesis guitarist Anthony Phillips and Kenny Everett/Alan Parsons Undertaking collaborator Chris Rainbow. The album entered the decrease reaches of the UK charts and Camel launched into a profitable Tenth-anniversary tour with a line-up together with vocalist Rainbow, bassist David Paton, drummer Stuart Tosh and returning late 70s keyboard participant Package Watkins.
Launched on April 13, 1984, the band’s tenth LP, Stationary Traveller, was additionally recorded in a state of flux, with the nucleus of Latimer and Paton joined by versatile keyboardist Ton Scherpenzeel (ex-Dutch progsters Kayak) and a brand new full-time drummer, Paul Burgess. Nevertheless, whereas the album broadly continued in the identical vein as its predecessor, delivering concisely structured, four- or five-minute pop songs, Stationary Traveller was a tad extra adventurous and positively the extra absolutely realized of the 2.
If not a “concept” LP within the strictest sense, Stationary Traveller’s 10 tracks shared a standard theme in that all of them associated to the trauma that East German residents confronted when leaving their households and making an attempt to cross the infamous Berlin Wall to the “freedom” of democratic Western society. With the Iron Curtain nonetheless dividing Europe, the Wall remained an oppressive bodily (and psychological) presence within the mid-80s and, as late as January ’89, GDR chief Erich Honecker warned it might nonetheless be standing for an additional 50 years.
Swathed in shadows and Chilly Conflict intrigue, Stationary Traveller adroitly tapped into the paranoia of the time, not least on the craving, evocative “West Berlin” and the dense, synth-led noir of “Vopos.” Elsewhere, nonetheless, a radio-friendly steadiness was redressed by accessible, guitar-driven tracks such because the Supertramp-like “Refugee” and the edgy, New Wave-esque “Cloak & Dagger Man,” whereas the swooning ballad “Long Goodbyes” (“Though I hate to go, I know it’s for the better”) offered a dignified, however suitably emotional, finale.
Chiming with The Single Issue’s business efficiency, Stationary Traveller proved a minor UK chart hit and the band’s subsequent tour bequeathed an equally first rate dwell LP, Stress Factors. Each stay releases worthy of reappraisal, although by the point Camel returned with 1991’s John Steinbeck-inspired Mud And Goals, the autumn of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of the previous USSR had already consigned Stationary Traveller’s lyrical considerations to the 4 winds of historical past.
Stationary Traveller might be purchased right here.
