Pete Bardens' follow-up to the popular Seen One Earth is a lightweight collection of new age instrumentals and sleepy pop songs. Speed of Light does feature a handful of nice melodies, none better than the atmospheric "Afterthought," but it's not enough to make this a compelling purchase (especially for Camel fans expecting a hint of the old organ magic to surface -- it never does). Synthetic songs like these live and die by the sounds at their disposal, and the fact is that the simulated flutes, saxophones, keyboards, and percussion used here only date the album. A couple of tracks, like "Westward Ho!" and "Gold," recall the southwestern sounds of Tangerine Dream (notably Oasis), though on a less grand scale. While the instrumentals are generally enjoyable, those with vocals suffer from pedestrian melodies.
