WIRELESS - ACOUSTIC SESSIONS

This is one of the best Acoustic Albums I ever heard. Mac with one of his best performances. He performed older songs. This was a great idea from a great band. You can say all Threshold Albums are fantastic. But this, for me is the best. This Album Tops it all. And I don't like Acoustioc Version of Rock songs. They are often only fpr quick money. But here it's the best. This CD is a killer.

Great unplugged material from a great progressive band! Highlight is a new song "Conceal the Face" (previously unreleased) and also couple of songs from Damian Wilson-era deserved to be mentioned like: "Part of the Chaos" and "Consume to Live". Andrew McDermott approved himself to be a truly great singer; his performance was superb here especially in the very emotional song "Innocent". The rest of the band also did quite a good job, so the highest recommendations go for this one! Must have for threshold fans!

Amazing...

If this was your only listen to Threshold, you'd wonder what the hell they were doing on a Progressive Rock site!

A simple collection of acoustic songs, rather uninspired and insipid, showcasing a heavy metal-lite band that has yet to get out of the late 1970s NWoBHM - albeit with a modern production.

The first song, Fragmentation, is one of the most bland songs I've ever heard.

The second, Consume to Live, has a sumptuous, rolling bass line - tell me that's an acoustic bass and I'll laugh. Listening for something interesting and progressive... still listening as the song ends. It's an OK song - hang on, aren't those synth strings? I thought this was Wireless - Acoustic Sessions, but now I'm looking up the Trades Descriptions act.

It changes to a new idea around 3 minutes - I'm surprised this part doesn't have a different name, as it's unrelated (except, perhaps lyrically) to the earlier music. Still standard rock territory, however.

Seventh Angel starts like something off Barclay James Harvest's Gone To Earth, The Sheltering Sky is deeply reminiscent of Pink Floyd's Breathe, Part of the Chaos is a bit more original - but this whole album pans out as a non-innovative collection of nice rock songs.

It's not poor - but it wouldn't grace anyone's collection but a fan of this group.

Basically, for almost every metalhead, even for those more inclined towards the progressive genre, an acoustic album is bad news. Yet, for this particular album, jumping into conclusions is not the best way to go. I'll try to tell you why.

The album contains acoustic remixes of 8 songs previously released on other albums, plus two songs, apparently written before the band got their first contract with a label - Seventh Angel and Conceal The Face. The word remixes is a well chosen term. What we have here on this album is not an unplugged session, or not just a regular unplugged session. The songs have new arrangements, some of them being quite hard to recognize, the difference between the original and the acoustic version being in most of the cases significant. Lovelorn is a very good example - only the lyrics can get you to recognize the original track from the Clone album. I could say some of these versions are more inspired than the originals. Anyhow, they deffinitely bring a new air, the band exploring new territories, with influences from jazz to r'n'b and pop. The highlights of this album would be: Falling Away, Sheltering Sky, Lovelorn, Conceal The Face.

In conclusion, Wireless ends up to be a collection of new visions over some of the best Threshold's songs. Threshold's fans probably taste this as a treat. But even for those who are not familiar with Threshold's previous works, is a good opportunity to meet one of the greatest progressive rock bands and make them curious about their other products.