After years of releasing albums which had more in common with P-Funk and Rick James, this record sees Cameo exploring Prince's new wave-edged sound, along with going down from 11 to 5 members. Tracks like "Soul Army" retain much of the personality from the previous albums, though. Another decent effort.
The cover and title matches the lavish sounds inside, as Cameo continued to deftly bridge the transition between excesses of the 70's and the more streamlined and tech-obsessed 80's.
Cameo albums were being released at a furious pace by now, as Feel Me was not even six months after Cameosis. Their slick R&B sound is further refined and processed, with bits of some of this stuff pointing to their eventual mid-80's works (especially "Your Love Takes Me Out"). The mid-tempo banger "Keep It Hot" was a big R&B hit.
A fairly big seller overall, and a huge hit on the R&B market in 1980, Cameosis is a moderate leap from the first group of Cameo albums. Not only is the group slowly embracing New Wave and related 80's sounds, but it seemed to really glue together the group into a unique commercial and critical force. "Shake Your Pants" was the lead single and a great example of the updated Cameo - featuring a band reveling in riffing off each other over a ridiculously catchy groove that refuses to quit. Furthermore, Larry Blackmon starts to move to the forefront as vocalist, showcasing the personality which would eventually bring him mainstream stardom. Elsewhere, the group is still in the remake game ("Why I Lost You" is the winner this time), and it's essentially a record for the dance floors, but hard to imagine any other group doing it with this much class and pride than these guys.
