Listening to Every Album by the Mostly Forgotten Canadian Progressive AOR Band FM
Because, I could?
I don’t know why I do the things I do, okay?
Well, that’s not entirely true. A couple years back I got officially diagnosed with ADHD and I guess it has given me a lot of perspective about the ridiculous shit that I do do these days.
Like on a Tuesday night, when I get the itch to listen to some kind of cheesy 80s melodic rock music and end up staring at the FM album Black Noise. Oh yeah, they’re Canadian right? Pretty sure I’ve tossed some songs by them onto a playlist of AOR cheese.
Well, hyperfixation has no guiding light and it will take you wherever it wants you to go. Today, it was thinking “that Black Noise album was really stuck in-between two styles, I should see what they did afterwards” and cut to a couple hours later and you’ve heard their entire discography.
Might as well get an article out of it, don’t you think? Here’s my real-time, as I was listening to the albums in order thoughts about this mostly forgotten band.
Black Noise (1978, Passport / PL-4001)
Genres: Progressive Rock, Space Rock, Symphonic Prog
I feel like I have seem FM albums in vinyl dollar bins and all that over the years (likely their later work) and I'm pretty sure in the past I've included them on some AOR cheese playlists. After picking Watercourse Way up on vinyl the other day, I thought I would dive into some other albums released on Passport Records for similar vibes.
This is by far the band's most reviewed album on Rate Your Music, and they seem to be one of those bands where discussions of their other albums often end up in "check their debut out instead." So, here I am.
The band is intriguing for sure. As a Canadian I heard about Nash the Slash a bunch throughout my life, but never have I a) heard any of their music enough to have formed an opinion on them or b) realized that they were in the band FM. The hook here is that they are a guitar-less act - bass, synthesizers, electric violin and drums (among other accoutrement).
It's not bad, but it feels like a band unable to decide what they want to be: a progressive rock band or a poppy new wave band. "Phasors on Stun" opens as the latter, and there are a number of more spacey instrumental tracks pulling the former trick off. Not all of it really does a lot to convince me they aren't a playlist band.
Their more digestible songs don't hook, and their progressive stuff feels a little expected to me, even with the alternative approach to their instruments. Won't let it stop me from trying some of their other albums out though and see how they fared when Nash said goodbye.
Direct to Disc (1978, Labyrinth / LBR-1001)
Genres: Progressive Rock, Space Rock, Progressive Electronic
Oh wow, OK, so it seems like within a year of their debut (which I referred to as sounding like a band stuck between progressive rock and art rock new wave) FM decided to cut a live-to-disc progressive fusion album. It's not entirely out of left field since they had this element to their sound, but this is two honest-to-goodness 15 minute progressive rock jazz fusion song-suites that bring to mind stuff like Jean-Luc Ponty or Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
Side-A "Headroom" is pretty great, with a few tasteful excursions into spacey sound effect moments (leader Cameron Hawkins was a multi-instrumentalist who played bass alongside sequencers and synthesizers etc.). Side-B "Border Crossing" has a fair bit more of the weird moments, but is still cool. The playing direct to a master lacquer aspect of this is pretty neat too. Clearly they performed multiple takes and chose the best ones for each side, but it also means it's a true live performance with no overdubs. Definitely makes me want to seek this out on vinyl.
If you're into this kind of thing, it's pretty dope. I like me some jazz fusion and especially when that is combined with a proggy, spacey element so this is right up my alley and I dug it a lot.
Surveillance (1979, Passport / PB-2001)
Genres: Progressive Rock, AOR, Space Rock
So here is where it becomes incredibly clear - if it wasn't already before - that the band just cannot hang when they try to score a radio-ready AOR hit. "Rocket Roll" is a well performed but absolutely terrible song. They just don't seem to have the hooks when they go straight-ahead rock.
Following that dud up with "Orion" into "Horizons" shows that they DO have some juice when they try to mix down their progressive and pop elements into the same tune instead of keeping them separated. "Horizons" is a nice piece of spacey prog art pop. "Random Harvest" is a solid groovy bit of Rush-esque roleplay. I was about to say that it is weird to me that "Shapes of Things" is the most streamed song on here, because it kind of feels like barely a song and then I realized it's a cover of Yardbirds. Oooops! Maybe it's just a bad cover?
When the band gets a better hold on the measurements of their sound in the back half - "Seventh Heaven" is another one that works, and "Sofa Back" recalls their jazz fusion work - this is totally OK. But so far, the highlight of their discography was when they went full-on fusion for me.
Ultimately passable, but really not much here to convince someone who isn't already weirdly interested in the trajectory of this Canadian band to check it out.
City of Fear (1980, Passport / PB-2028)
Genres: Progressive Rock, New Wave, AOR
Generally considered to be where the band "lost it", but I'd argue the band never consistently had their approach figured out until this point.
Finally, the band is able to take their lightly progressive elements and their vaguely new wave artistic synthy AOR pop and meld them together in a way that—for the most part—results in an above-average record. Direct to Disc is more thrilling on the whole, but this has a cold, rain-slicked atmosphere that really works for their more concise songs. Maybe it's the fact that Mink is utilizing their electric mandolin and violin more obviously like an overdriven guitar on this record that it give the band a sturdier foundation?
Aside from their fusion album, this is certainly the band at their most dependable.
Con-Test (1985, Quality / SV-2138)
Genres: AOR
After leaving to pursue a solo career, Nash the Slash returns to FM four albums later. At this point, I'm fully in the "I have no idea why I am listening to and rating every FM album, but I can't quit now" territory.
The most interesting thing about this is probably the fact that with a returning founding member, they didn't revert to their original line-up but instead kept Ben Mink around, but on guitar instead of mandolin/violin. The other thing about this, is that instead of recalling their debut, this fully commits to the AOR genre rather than their more celebrated early sound.
"Just Like You" sounds like the band trying to do The Cars. Some of the synth work here is neat enough, but the whole album has a real well-worn territory vibe to it. There's a couple nice enough moments, but they're few and far between. Usually the return of a founding member means the return of a certain spark to a band, but this is definitely where they fully lost it for the first time.
Tonight (1987, Duke Street / DSR-31042)
Another attempt by the band to fully streamline their sound. On Con-Test the band was dragged down into dull new wave AOR territory, and here it seems like they are making a pivot into more of a synthpop type of deal as heard in the opening track "Magic (In Your Eyes)". Ben Mink and drummer Martin Deller have also said goodbye at this point from the looks of things.
Songs like "Dream Girl" are absolutely nothing but airy AM radio fluff, and I don't hate that. This is big "key change on the final chorus" kind of shit. In the past when the band tried for radio hits, they never really had the melodies. I'm not saying these melodies are strong, but they're going for it. Points for effort, at least. I was ready to take points away for attempting to do a "Good Vibrations" cover, and it sticks out like a sore thumb, but I guess I've heard worse. The verses are an interesting take, at least. "Night Flight" seems to be their try at a Phil Collins song.
Overall, I vibe with the big cheeseball synthpop songs more than I do their attempt to sound like great value The Cars on their last album, so this improves slightly.
Also, I've always felt that Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood was an underrated entry in the Friday the 13th series (marred mostly by the MPAA cuts) and a bunch of these songs are used there, which may be subconsciously playing into my appreciation here.
Transformation (2015, Esoteric Antenna / EANTCD1050)
Genres: Progressive Rock, Symphonic Prog, Space Rock, Progressive Pop
Ah, the late-career "reunion" album. I say this in quotes because at this point it is the Cameron Hawkins show featuring new supporting members of the band. And the return of multiple genre tags!
The result is an attempt to re-focus the band towards their lightly progressive pop rock roots, with emphasis put back on the violin and mandolin alongside the expected bass and synthesizer from Hawkins.
This is tough to rate, because it's all well performed and arranged but also very watery and forgettable. You can listen to this and point at things, saying "that's a very well performed solo" or "the drum performance here is great" but none of it really adds up to something memorable.
For die-hard fans of the band, I suppose this is a nice cap on their career of a band that seemed to be forever stuck in the position of trying to figure their identity out. I guess for a lot of people the fact that this "isn't bad" is success enough. Really, I only listened to it because I had to round out their discography, and it’d have been painfully unsatisfying had I stopped one album too soon.
And that’s it for the FM discography.
I skipped the non-canonical Nash The Slash, Cameron Hawkins & Martin Deller release Lost in Space, because it’s not an approved FM album and is mostly an odds-and-ends type of thing.
Here’s my official take-aways:
If you like progressive jazz fusion, definitely give Direct to Disc a whirl.
City of Fear (1980) would be my pick for the average person to listen to, as it’s the only one that splits their sound effectively.
Black Noise (1978) certainly seems to be the one all the people on the internet like most, but I found it just alright.
If you desperately need some cheesy synthy pop songs, you could do worse than Tonight (1987).
Con-Test (1985) and Surveillance (1979) are big misses, only the latter would be of interest for die-hards.
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.
Hell yessss
Thank you for your service