Camel
Nude

THE REVIEW

My first DeReview, so... don't shoot the DeReviewer, he's doing the best he can...

It's 1981 when Andrew Latimer & Co. re-present themselves to the public with this album, two years after the not-so-extraordinary "I Can See Your House From Here" and a year before the even less compelling "Single Factor". It's undeniable that certain sounds marked '80s make their cumbersome presence felt in this concept album, which, however, in my opinion, has a charm and completeness on par with their best works.

It tells the story (half true and half fictional) of a Japanese soldier (Hiroo Onoda, "domesticated" in Nude), found many years after the end of World War II on a remote island in the Pacific, fighting a war that for him had never ended, but which paradoxically had never really begun either.

The initial impact with the story is frankly not the best: City Life-Nude feels a bit plastic and like easy pop, but perhaps this vague feeling of discomfort is partially intended, and the text highlights the character's sense of alienation towards a frantic city life, in which he doesn't seem to feel at ease. It is immediately contrasted by the symphonic opening (which then spreads into evocative guitar solos) of Drafted, in which the protagonist of the story is introduced with his somewhat naive reaction to war propaganda: it's 1942, and for Nude, like many other young people, the homeland is making an offer he (as Don Vito Corleone would say) cannot refuse: an offer to enlist in the army.

Dark bass lines (Colin Bass), martial rhythms, and dramatic guitar themes, highlighted by echoes traversing the stereo channels (Docks), depict the beginning of our protagonist's war. However, the company is surprised by a storm that forces it to hastily take land (Beached), and by a strange fate, Nude is unknowingly left alone on a remote Pacific island. The frenzy of the previous tracks is replaced by an atmosphere of great peace and harmony. The flute of Mel Collins (or Latimer? the booklet included with the CD doesn't help resolve the dilemma) spreads through evocative exotic settings (Landscapes) and subdued tribal percussions (Changing Places). Nude spends nearly thirty years in this sort of earthly paradise, but distant echoes of a martial march (Pomp & Circumstance) warn us that Nude's story on this island is about to end.

Like the calls of Ulysses' sirens, the invitations to return (Please Come Home) sound false and deceitful, but once again Nude doesn't have much choice and is about to say goodbye to what has been his home for thirty years. The keyboards of Duncan Mackay and the usual Latimer's guitar play one last time, calm and serene (Reflections), soon replaced by the frantic and insistent rhythms of the (so-called) civilized world (Captured). A band march (The Homecoming) welcomes the revived hero, but oblivion quickly takes the place of enthusiasm, and Nude is "lovingly welcomed" into a mental health institution.

Nude screams out all his disillusionment and anger for the lies (Lies) that have been fed to him once again, disillusionment and anger voiced by Latimer's guitar in one of his most famous solos. On the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, the institute's staff prepare a birthday party (Birthday Cake), but Nude is far away: he was last seen in the summer of 1972 talking to some sailors at a nearby port. The percussion by Andy Ward (here in his last performance with Camel) fades in the distance (Nude's Return), and along with them, my (De)review.