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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Anyone's Daughter Adonis (Vinyl) Review by Gary Hill This is a new audiophile record. It’s a classy set on heavy duty vinyl. The quality of vinyl coming out these days is so far beyond the old stuff that it’s scary. There’s nothing like the tactile experience of holding a heavy piece of vinyl in your hands and setting it to spinning on a turntable. Of course, the key is the music. This album is all classic progressive rock. While the sound is familiar, it seldom calls to mind any well known artists, though. It does at times. Still, it’s all entertaining and a great ride. If you’ve got a turntable, I can’t recommend this enough. This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2014 Volume 6 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Track by Track Review

Side 1

Adonis Part I: Come Away This is quite a cool piece of music. It starts a bit like Genesis to me. It works from there through several shifts and changes. There is a bit of fusion in the mix. There are plenty of other sounds, too. This is great stuff. It moves through a lot of territory, but all the changes are organic and seamless.

Adonis Part II: The Disguise The opening sections of this are keyboard oriented and remind me a lot of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. From there, though, it works into a more full band treatment. That doesn’t have the same ELP vibe. This is quick paced and very tasty. It has a lot of shifts and changes. The vocals don’t come in until late in the piece.

Adonis Part III: Adonis In some ways this feels more mainstream. Still, this is progressive rock and no one is going to mistake it for anything else. There are some aspects here that make me think of the proggier side of Asia. There is a killer guitar riff section later in the track. That gets worked into a more full band treatment jam from there. I love this instrumental movement. It’s powerful and so cool. There are some great keyboard sections built into it.

Adonis Part IV: Epitaph This starts with just piano and works out from there. The vocals come in with just the keyboards backing them. This reminds me, as it gets more developed, of Asia or the more melodic side of UK. Some melodic soaring guitar soloing is heard on an instrumental section later in the piece.


Side 2

Blue House A killer keyboard solo opens this and holds it for a time. From there it drops back to a mellower keyboard section for the song proper to get underway. The music continues to evolve from there as the guitar takes more of a lead role. There is a bit of a blues rock vibe to this, but it’s still definitely progressive rock. It gets rather fusion-like at times and the drums get a pretty prominent role at times. This instrumental is quite melodic and yet manages to rock, too.

Sally There is almost a Canterbury vibe to this as far as I’m concerned. It’s bouncy and fun. It’s also high energy. It has some saxophone soloing. There’s quite a bit going on here. At times I’m reminded of some of the more playful Genesis (think “Harold the Barrel”). At other points it has some real fusion-like elements. It’s less than five minutes in length, so impressive how much they pack into it, really.

Anyone's Daughter This jam might be the best thing here. It’s got a lot of fusion in a killer high energy groove. The keyboard soloing on this thing is classic. It eventually works out to more of a fast paced mainstream progressive rock jam for the vocals. This doesn’t really sound like anyone in particular, but it has an air of familiarity. After the vocal segment we’re taken out into another killer progressive rock jam. The song continues shifting and changing until eventually works out to the end.

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