ANYONE'S DAUGHTER

For their second album Anyone's Daughter left the legendary Brain label and were signed by Spiegelei, another specialized Kraut-Rock label, part of the Intercord Ton GmbH record company.The album, released in 1980, carried only the name of the band as a title and was the last one written in English from the band's early progressive years.

In ''Anyone's Daughter'' the German quartet left out the long, epic compositions for more comfortable and conventional songwriting always with a deep progressive content.Gone are also any kind of ELOY influences and the band recalls heavily the 75-80's GENESIS period, having a strong Proto-Neo Prog approach, while the symphonic tendencies remain present.But, while the songs are more easy-listening, the unique talent of the band forced them to write down some pretty nice light Symphonic Prog.The use of synthesizers is more apparent, the bass grooves become one of Anyone's Daughter's trademarks and some tracks have even some straightforward rockin' tunes.Still the tracks maintain a strong symphonic approach, the guitar leads and solos of Uwe Karpa are more than satysfying and, when needed, the music obtains a more complicated sound with light interplays and great floating synths.One though can not do else than miss the epic arrangements of the band's superb debut.

This is another very good album by Anyone's Daughter, much a product of its time, with the band flirting with the fashion of the time, creating more accesible but still impressive music.Recommended.

Fifth studio album from this german prog band, named Neue Sterne from 1983 is still a prog rock album but this time with pop overtones here and there. It sounds very much like Eloy same period Performance era. Still pretty enjoyble if just listen to Wieder weiter, Das Puppenspiel, etc, with of course typical sound for the '80's special in keybords section, very digital but not bad at all, really am example is the piece Konsequenzen. This is their most mainstream album from their catalogue, at least from first era, prog rock with some pop combinations, gives in the end a pleasent album but far from what they've offered on first 2 albums, the symphonic moments are almost gone living place to a more accesible yet well performed pop prog. So, 3.5 stars their most unitresting album from their first 5 years but with all that has plenty of memorable moments and almost intresting arrangements in places. The last 4 pieces shows that Anyone's Daugher still has great ideas to offer and aswell good musiciaship. Again 3 to 3.5 stars, worthy but not excellent.

actualy 3,5

Anyone's Daughter was and still is one of the pleasent and most enjoyble bands I've heared from early '80's from Germany. The selftitled album from 1980 is my fav album from them , this forth album from 1982 named In blau is quite near. After some albums with english lyrics they return to thir native language, who btw way sounds pretty great in this context, even the german language is quite rough here sounds very well and melted perfectly with the music. Some fantastic passages Anyone's Daughter offers here, like third piece Nichts fur mich, great musicianship, some memorable parts symphonic prog typical for german school very much in places like Novalis or Genesis but with their own personal touch. Another highlight is the ending tune , 15 min of intricat arrangements that goes from aacustic passages with piano interludes to more uptempo aparts very tight and well performed. In the end a winner, the sonical landscaple of In blau can be intrsting for any prog rock listner, while I can't considered as great as first two album, this is a great work that keeps the flag quite high in prog zone in the '80's. 3-3.5 stars almost 4 stars but ot quite there, stil solid.

Hailing from the German city of Stuttgart, symphonic-rock outfit Anyone's Daughter appeared pretty late in the day for a full-blown progressive rock act, their debut release 'Adonis' not issued until 1979. However, despite this, the group had, by 1986, shifted almost two-hundred thousand records in their homeland alone, a phenomenal amount for an unfashionable group playing complex music at a time when punk and new wave were beginning to dominate. Of course, by the time the 1980s had come round Anyone's Daughter had begun to soften their style, whilst later albums, unlike 'Adonis' would be sung entirely in their native German tongue. A concept album-of-sorts, 'Adonis' is a thickly-symphonic beast filled with carefully-crafted neo-classical passages adorned with wailing guitars and melodic keyboards. Atmospheric sound effects are also used to flesh out group's sound, the overall effect not unlike that of fellow teutonic outfit Grobschnitt, only Anyone's Daughter sound is softer, less manic and without that band's wild sense of crazy - and sometimes rather silly - humour. The strongest moments on 'Adonis' are found on their four-part title-track song-suite that opens the album, the group's trademark warm, glistening synthesizers and multi-layered keyboards producing a slow- burning sound that rarely takes flight for long. This is careful, studied progressive rock with the emphasis very much on careful instrumentation, and at times the blend proves rather beautiful. However, whereas Grobschnitt's fantasy-tinged prog would be spiked with powerful solo's and quickfire interplay, Anyone's Daugher by comparison seems slow, occasionally bordering on the tedious. The rest of the album never quite catches fire, thus the end result proves attractive yet ultimately frustrating. Some have likened Anyone's Daughter to such British prog luminaries as Genesis and Yes, yet that is probably to high an appraisal. 'Adonis' is a tasteful and fairly creative slice of ethereal symphonic prog, though sadly it fails too often to set the pulse racing. Interesting then, and not without it's merits, but hardly a classic of the genre.

STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012

Pictor's Metamorphoses is the third album of south german band Anyone's Daughter. It is a concept album of continuous playing time of almost 40 minutes based on a fairy-tale by Herman Hesse.

The album was recorded live on january 18th 1981 during a regular live gig by the band at the town of Heidenheim.

Until then Anyone's Daughter used mainly english song lyrics but with this record they wanted to begin to use their own german language. Having no problem with albums sung in unfamiliar languages I was very interested in listening the new "sound" of the band.

I have to say the music is played excellently as before, and the production quality is very high, sounding as a normal studio recording, with strong rhythm session and warm electric piano, synth and ELOY-like solemn pace.

The difference lies in the continuous alternating of fantastic instrumental efforts and long (slow) recitative parts (in german, as I said before) with light CAMEL-esque background music. It all gives you a sense of continuous interruptions or suspensions that is somehow frustrating.

Still a wonderful and a must have. Not at the very same level of Adonis, though.

This is one of the legendary bands that anticipated the neo-prog movement, cause they sometimes sounds close to the new wave of british prog rock that would appear a few years later.

Adonis is a very good album, even though there are plenty of ordinary rock moves that went down better in its day.

If you like the more melodic side of symphonic prog, the slow pace and solemn walk of space rock masters of PINK FLOYD and ELOY, then Anyone's Daughter still must be considered for the collection.

The first side is dominated by the wonderful self titled epic. While the second half isn't that impressive it still holds up rather well. "Blue House" is a laid-back instrumental (with hints to CAMEL) and "Sally" is a poppy number with lots of piano and sax solos.

Though the album is brief, it is solid from beginning to end. And it's very recommended.

You know the feeling when your best friend, the one whom you always trusted, suddenly pulls a dagger (OK, I admit, some kind of blade isn't standard part of nowaday's attire) and stabs you in the back ? Well, it's better when it's an enemy and you expected it, but the result is the same. I knew this album won't be up to anything good and, from the look at current reviews, it seems that everyone is overlooking this album, avoiding it as much as they could. The band (or what is left of it) decided to get together again, bring some new blood (ahem), do some mediocre songs and try to get away with it. Guess what, it didn't work. It's not just bad and completely not Prog, it is also almost pain to listen to. Almost, that's why I don't give 1.

Two remaining original members, different singer, modern sound (so you will probably need to getting used to it, or discard this album instantly), different sound, worse sound both from Prog point of view and from how much I am enjoying it. After all, such reformations are rarely to anything good (even good examples exists), but this is not the way I would like the band to be. There's really not much more to be said. Prog fans don't have much reason to choose this album (over thousands better ones) and for whom else it can be, it's fairly average Rock material. Sad end.

Follow-up that still stands still, firmly showing AD's power, even not as strong as the albums before. Sadly, not only that I am quite allergic to German language (never could have get used to it, apologies to my German friends) and when we "remove" (god bless mp3's) such passages, we get 24 minutes, less than 2/3 of original album's length - 24 minutes of music. Of course, I missed some in these 14 minutes, but what can I do. Knowing only English, these spoken passages would be useless to me anyway.

The music (which I have a bad feeling isn't the most important thing here - narrative probably is), is like a gentle breeze - it doesn't offense, it feels fine, but you barely notice it. There are some highlights namely Der Doppelstern, where the likes of Adonis (yes the one and only) glimpses through a haze of averageness and it raises the stakes a bit, but because of the holes (as Warthur said - jams because of skipping tracks), one third of an album wasted and general a bit above average sound of the album I am forced to state the verdict as 3.

It's funny how previous reviewers used (chronologically) these ratings: 5-4-4-4-3. This is uncommon sight, but I am still unsure why such phenomena is happening. I plan to break i though.

Anyone's Daughter, a name that used to annoy me a lot, even their music (first two albums at least) I consider very great (first one even masterpiece). Indeed, because of their ground- shaking debut (at least for those Prog heads who had the chance to heard it, it probably wasn't commercial success), everything later is prone to be compared with it. Yes, even I will do such thing.

Still that super-melodic, mellow trademark sound of theirs (combination of gentle parts, unique vocals of Harald Bareth and keys, also unique). Except Moria, I hate that song. Not because it breaks the line and does something different than rest of the bunch that is 9 songs, but because it is sound of things to come - too 80s, too "whiny" bridge ("In Moriaaa") - it's remarkable how so short song can annoy me (and keep annoying) so much. The rest ? Equally adequate, with a bit of a penchant for Superman.

About four. Sadly, since this, AD would be slippery slope.