Camel

No, not the animal, nor the cigarettes (though that does come in briefly), but the English progressive rock band from the early 70s.  Founding member Andrew Latimer (guitar) has continued the band to the present day, as the only remaining original member, but the “classic” era covers 4 albums.

Classic Lineup.   Andrew Latimer (guitar & vocals), Peter Bardens (keyboards & vocals) (those two look almost identical!), Doug Ferguson (bass), Andy Ward (drums).

Camel.  The self-titled first album.  Mostly it's similar to Mirage.  To the extent I can possibly distinguish it from the later material, it's a bit more jazzy and improvisational rather than proggy.   An extra track is "Homage to the God of Light", a live 19 minute jam session of Bardens' prior solo material.   In that regard, Camel share something in common with King Crimson: a prog band that's also a jam band, because neither the Grateful Dead nor Phish (top jam bands) can really be considered prog, and many prog bands - e.g. The Moody Blues or Pink Floyd - really aren't jam bands.  

Mirage.  The second album, so overtly copied from the cigarettes – “CAMEL” spelt out in the same font – it may as well be a cig pack smashed into a square.  In fact, the tobacco company sued them, but the band reached an arrangement – including distributing free cigarettes at the shows.  Of course, originally this was on vinyl, so it was a large square.  It actually sounds a bit like King Crimson.  Flute addition does more for a Lizard comparison than anything sounding like Jethro Tull.  KC sax player Mel Collins actually joined the band much later.

Music Inspired by the Snow Goose.   This is their most famous album.  The author of Snow Goose, Paul Gallico, wasn’t a fan of smoking, so he objected to this band making a concept album based on his novel.  It’s still a good album, but kind of boring in some parts.

Moonmadness.  After Snow Goose they went back to a regular “group of unrelated songs” album, no concept except perhaps the moon.  The top two songs on here are “Another Night” and “Lunar Seas”, but the overall consistency is much higher than Snow Goose.

After Moonmadness, Doug Ferguson left the band.  Two albums later, Peter Bardens left.  As mentioned earlier, Andrew Latimer is the only original member left.  Two from Caravan (Richard and David Sinclair) later joined the band.

The sound on the first four albums is proggy – Mikael Akerfeldt, the singer/guitarist of Opeth, mentions Camel as a major influence.  I can’t comment on the later albums, on which Latimer may have strayed on and off into commercial vs. prog territory.   The guitar and keyboards, of course, are the meat and potatoes.  Like Crimson and ELP, they have to be heard to be understood.