PIKTORS VERWANDLUNGEN

With their third release ANYONE'S DAUGHTER gets adventerous with a concept album including lots of narration in German.The only actual singing is on the final track. I found this album to be a big letdown after the first two recordings considering that there's about 12 minutes of spoken words in a language I don't understand, leaving only 25 minutes of actual music. I guess if your into concept albums though you might dig this.

"Piktor" opens with drums and other sounds that build. It settles back some with the guitar playing over top. "Erstes Verspiel" is filled with sparse piano then we get German narration on the next track. "Purpur" kicks in right away including some excellent bass and guitar. Great sound here. A bass solo after 2 minutes then it kicks back in. It blends into "Zweites Verspiel" where spacey synths join in. More German narration on the next tune, then we get "Der Baum" where synths, piano and drums build.Guitar around a minute. Keyboards and guitar trade solos. Nice. It then turns mellow before 5 1/2 minutes to the end.

German narration on the next song then "Sehnsucht" arrives where guitar, drums and synths standout. It settles then we get some fat bass with drums 3 minutes in along with some atmospheric guitar. German narration on the next track, then guitar and drums lead on "Pikteria,Viktoria". More German narration then the final track "Der Dopelstern" has vocals for the first time with guitar and drums helping out.

Even if the narration was in English I still would find this distracting having a play by play as it were between tunes.