MIDNIGHT WIRE

Average album. Sonja Kristina's appeal to the male audience always overshadowed her vocal shortcomings. I still remember the blue hot pants from the gig at Bournemouth Winter Gardens in the late 70's! Pipe of Dreams is a nice instrumental, though.

Sonja Kristina is really a bad singer, and her voice sounds irritating. In this record her presence breaks the band that sounds better than the other albuns. Well, i really don´t like this band and pass ahead this record in a trade store.

I really didn't know what to expect when I bought this album. The only song I had ever heard of their's was Vivaldi and I loved it. Fortunately, it was a good investment. This has become one of my favorite albums to listen to. I don't really like the first track though. I don't know, I just don't like it, but the rest of the album was such a big surprise. Sonja Kristina's voice is so sloppy, but I like it. It's filled with so much real emotion, almost something you can relate to. Maybe not what she says but how she says it. My favorite song on this album is "Day Breaks My Heart". The transition from rock to the Brazilian-pop-like sound just works so well. I just wish Curved Air would become more popular, especially here in South Florida so that I could buy more of their albums. I bought this one in Toronto. That is the risk I had to take. This album gets three stars because although I love it, I don't think many people would agree with me If I said that it was essential and then they went out and bought it. But I can say that it's an aquired tasted. It didn't take to long for me though.

My first encounter with this album was in the LP (vinyl) era, early '80's. At the time the only way of finding out about new progressive music, new to me anyway, was browsing at record stores or word of mouth. I had already picked up the first two albums and maybe Phantasmagoria at the time and liked them a lot. As far as I knew, those were the only albums in the discography. I get this one home and what a major disappointment!

The only track I really cared for, and still the best one on here, was the instrumental Pipe of Dreams. As was my habit at the time, I'd record LPs I liked to 90-minute cassettes. If there was any space left over on a side, I'd add a filler track from an album I didn't want to waste a whole cassette side for. So that was the fate of this album in my collection for a quite a while.

Come 2002, I had started to convert some of my LPs to CD, stuff that hadn't been released on CD yet and didn't seem likely to. Usually when I do this, particularly if I go to the trouble to scan in the album cover art and make my own CD booklet, the thing gets released and I have to buy it, arrgh! So, I was making a copy of Air Cut and I gave Midnight Wire another spin to select tracks to fill up my CD. Turned out that to my current tastes this album wasn't quite as bad as when I first heard it.

Still, if you're going to explore Curved Air, put this one at the bottom of your list. I recently got an official copy, it was released in '95. Air Cut was just re-released last year (2006) and is much, much better.

Woman on a One Night Stand is utterly unimpressive. I do like Day Breaks My Heart's jazzy style, not something you'll not hear much from CA. The title track, Midnight Wire, isn't too bad either. The rest of the songs here are pretty good as pop tunes, but rather poor as prog.

Personnel wise, this album is interesting for having Stewart Copeland on drums, pre Police. Also, Darryl Way is back after his one album hiatus (Air Cut).

I was really surprised with the low ratings this album got. I had Midnight Wire at the time it was released and I remember liking it very much. Sure, it was not as good as the first four, but still they were able to deliver a more than average work. In fact I believe some people here were mistaken to label this Lp as commercial pop rock. It is not. it's softer than all previous ones, but still too sophisticated and progressive enough to prevent that (and, besides, it did not sell well).

Darryl Way was back on fold, but unfortunatly Francis Monkman didn't and his presence is sorely missing. The songs selection was not their best either, with some fine moments on the title track and the instrumental Pipe Of Drems. There are no real bad tunes, but neither are too memorable ones. For the second time around the band had changed their style dramatically and I guess their fans did fogave them for that (the previous album, Air Cut was also badly received for the change of style).

Still I have a soft spot for this CD. It is different, not so much progressive (like the three first), nor hard rocking (like Air Cut), but still delivering some fine light stuff. Besides, Kristina voice is wonderful and the musicians are skilled (including a young, pre Police, Stewart Copeland). So I think it is savory, but not for everyone. My personal rating: 3,5 stars.

This album is obviously the weakest effort of the band so far. I wouldn't necessarily say that this album sound pop; it is just weak.

Song writing is below average, melodies are absent, songs sounds flat and uninspired. Darryl is more than ever on the command and Sonja has apparently recovered from her ''vocal disease'' which was noticeable on their live album.

The global mood is more bluesy (''Orange Street Blues'') or even soulish (''Dance Of Love''), needless to say that none of these genre is able to attract my attention. This album is not a good one to be honest. Some pleasant violin play is probably the best you can expect out of this work, but we are far from the brilliance of the early days of course (''Vivaldi'').

Needless to say that this album is not an essential one. The band released better works in their early days, although I was never thrilled: good music but not great music. With this ''Midnight Wire'', they just went one step below. Not one single good song available. And the attraction of Steward Copeland on percussions in really not enough to make this album interesting.

Two stars: weak to poor.

2.5 really

With this album from 1975 named Midnight wire Curved Air lost identity, this release is mediocre, but at least has some ok moments here and there. Sonya voice is ok, but in some parts is irritating like on opening track, a totaly forgetable track for sure. Copeland on drums appears here, later on The Police or Oysterhead among others. The best pieces of the album is an instrumental one named Pipe of dreams, is a nice little tune , very atmospheric with violin making some good moves. The rest of the tracks are forgetable and uninspired at best, this release sounds kinda far from what they had on first 2-3 albums, is mainly comercial with not many prog arrangements. I was never a fan of this band, I like some of their albums but nothing special to my ears.

A pipe dream

Midnight Wire was a definite disappointment after the excellent Air Cut from two years before. At this point the band had gone through considerable problems and you can tell that the inspiration is not what it was. With Midnight Wire Curved Air moved very markedly towards generic Rock 'N' Roll and Blues Rock territory with little or no residue of their progressive Rock origins. Personally, I prefer also the follow-up Airborne over this despite the latter being more of a streamlined Pop Rock album although with more progressive touches than can be found here. Pipe Of Dreams is a decent instrumental but nothing too special. The only track that stands up over repeated listens is the closing title track, but even that does not live up to the quality of earlier album favourites and is much inferior compared to Airborne's magnificent Moonshine.

This is easily Curved Air's weakest and least exciting studio album. Proceed with caution.