Review Summary: Calming, serene and full of energy at the same time. Packing a couple of unexpectedly strong punches, The Race of a Thousand Camels is one of England's best kept secrets.
An album can have a central theme tying into its song writing; perhaps a particular soundscape that it wishes to capture in a particular way. But at the end of it all, an album is a collection of tracks (unless it’s just one big song). Generally speaking, multiple songs make up an album and it’s the strength of these songs together as a unit that determine how strong the album is.
Unfortunately (though not that it hinders the album from being absolutely stunning) in the case of The Race of a Thousand Camels, the debut outing from English Alt/Dream pop outfit Bôa, although the majority of the tracklist is incredibly solid, one song by far stands out on its own. It’s right near the start of the album… and none of the other songs hit quite as hard as it does. The song in question,
Duvet, utilises fuzzy guitar hooks, incredibly tight musicianship, a dazzlingly pretty keyboard solo and the alluring vocals of Jasmine Rodgers. The lyricism in
Duvet is wonderful, the way Rodgers leads into the song cold with the line “… and you don’t seem to understand, a shame you seemed an honest man,” is truly unforgettable and hooks the listener in due to its rather ambiguous familiarity.
The rest of the album almost accomplishes the same feelings that
Duvet does. The Race of a Thousand Camels is jammed full of emotional, fuzzy chord progressions, superb lyricism and vocals and catchy pop hooks… but they’re not the same. To its credit,
Duvet is a massive height to follow and if you completely ignore it’s presence, the rest of the album is highly enjoyable. The opener
Fool for example shows how the band can hook in a listener with dreamy, fuzzy instrumentals and intriguing, hard hitting lyrics “I was born an eastern girl in a western world.” The following number,
Twilight is jammed full of catchy chord progressions, characterised by subtle, dreamy bends and a mesmerising string section. Rodgers’ delivery in the chorus, as with almost all of the choruses on the album, is absolutely superb, soaring up into the higher octaves of her range and then levelling back down with force in her voice. But then
Duvet is the next song and it becomes difficult not to compare everything directly after it to it. Had it appeared later in the tracklist rather than right at the beginning, The Race of a Thousand Camels might have been able to avoid the sensation of plateauing so early in its running time. However, I must reiterate, the rest of the album is far from weak, it’s just not the same.
Elephant shows off the bands more tender side. Slower, cleaner and very relaxing, without a doubt one of the album’s strongest moments. The album also has some really fun parts found in songs like
Deeply and the song
One Day where Jasmine Rodgers relinquishes vocal duties for one of the male members of the group (not specified in credits). Bôa create some interesting textures throughout the album.
For Jasmine has a strange, soothing but jumpy rhythm reminiscent in a way of carnival music before it kicks its way into the uptempo chorus. A lot of the albums tracks operate on this technique of hooking the listener in with a soothing chord progression, vocal melody and enchanting string section before letting them have it with an energetic chorus. You’d think that it would get tiring to listen to, but it never does, despite the tracks after
Duvet not quite standing up to it.
The Race of a Thousand Camels is a wonderful little secret of English music hiding out in Japan. Though it was later made available to the rest of the world as the album “Twilight.” Despite the rest of the album having to hold up to the gentle monster of emotion that is
Duvet, the rest of the album is special in its own way and well worth the listen. If you’re craving fuzzy guitars, serene strings and gorgeous female vocals, don’t pass up Bôa’s The Race of a Thousand Camels.
