Vive La Trance

After the creative summit of 1971-1972, change was in the making for Amon Düül II. Before a tour of the UK in the spring (a session was recorded for the BBC in May), Lothar Meid and Daniel Fichelscher departed, the latter for Popol Vuh. Peter Leopold returned, and multi-instrumentalist Robby Heibl later arrived to help complete the ensuing album, Vive La Trance. Sporting 11 individual tracks, the band left the instrumentals of their previous albums behind for something far more concise and, perhaps, even more commercial. "A Morning Excuse" opens, revealing a clean production centered on the guitars of Chris Karrer, John Weinzierl and Heibl; "Fly United" follows suit. Renate Knaup offers falsetto on "Jalousie," and "Mozambique" (dedicated to Monica Ertl) retains the long-form AD2 over its long fade. But the second side, especially on tracks like "Dr," the plain-rocking "Pigman" (dedicated to Olaf Kübler) and the easy "Manana," are mediocre at best. "Ladies Mimikry" sports a fine bass from Weinzierl and more sax from Karrer, but ultimately disappoints. The album would be the band's last with United Artists, and also the last with Kübler, though not before an excellent compilation of singles, Lemmingmania, was released in 1975. AD2 then signed with Nova (Telefunken-Decca) in Germany, and even inked a deal with Atco Records for the US and UK. The band's next record, Hijack, released in 1974, continued the trend towards proficient but conventional rock by mimicking different types of music. 1975's concept album Made In Germany was pared down to a single album for US release; but despite the grand intention, AD2's best days were behind them. Withstanding far too numerous personnel changes to mention, the band would continue to release records until the early 80s, yet just offering (more or less) mainstream rock.