LAST TRACKS

A rather underrated release. The first five tracks are from a revised edition of the group that recorded an aborted, unfinished album in 1985 before disbanding for good. These tracks are, of course, rubbish...not remotely progressive, just bad 80's pop music full of plastic electronic drums and horrid digital keys/DX7. And new singer Michael Braun sounds like a whiny version of Harald Bareth.

The reason to own the album is for the last 26 minutes, comprised of a demo tape from circa 1977, before ADONIS was recorded. The sound quality is deplorable, it sounds as though the tape had spent the past nine years under water with a pile of magnets stacked on it. But the music is some of the band's finest ever. "Ma Cherie Marquise de Sade" has grown to legendary status in their live act, so it's good to finally have a recorded version of the piece. It's an absolute stunner, a fusion-tinged instrumental in jackhammer 17/8 time, rather like a more symphonic version of a National Health tune (complete with fuzzed-out organ). And "Window Pain" is a superior epic, a precursor to the "Adonis" suite.

The other early tracks are good, but not essential. "I Hear An Army" is sort of prog-pop, fanfare-y but still trapped by song-forms. And "Sally The Green" is simply an early version of "Sally" from the ADONIS album.

Still, those two nine-minute tracks are absolute crackers, some of the best music of the entire Anyone's Daughter catalogue, and I'd say this rare release is worth tracking down just for them.