TONIGHT

One of the Beach Boys strapped to the snowy Canadian landscape?

One decade after FM's debut album they put out Tonight, which was to be their last album (until 2015's Transformation). Together with the previous Con-Test from 1985, Tonight is FM at their worst. This album is very much of its time and that is not a good thing when the time in question is the mid-1980's! All traces of progressive Rock are eradicated and the band's trademarks are pretty much completely gone. FM are close to New Wave territory here with the music found on Tonight often reminding me of The Cars. The melodies are slightly more catchy than on the dull Con-Test, but in the end these albums are no more than barely listenable.

They pull off a lame cover of The Beach Boys Good Vibrations which is as cold as the snowy landscape on the cover image. At first I didn't notice the snow covered human body in the middle of the picture, oddly strapped to the ground preventing it from floating off! Actually, the cover art is the best thing about this album.

Not recommended unless you are a FM completionist.

Only two years passed between "Con-test" and the 1987 release "Tonight", but FM had nonetheless withstood another lineup change, adding several well known names of the Canadian scene and a full time electric guitarist for the first time. Most of the better cuts here are offered in the first half, including the catchy "Magic in Your Eyes" and "Dream Girl", and the ambiently textured "Alone Together" that includes a fine power ballad lead guitar solo. The album might be a bit lighter in feel than "Con-test" but that's not necessarily a positive. The nadir is struck with a poor adaptation of a song that I doubt many of us pine for, "Good Vibrations", but that's only the most egregious misstep. "I'm not bad" and "Lost in Thought" are not even up to the modest standards being set by the FM of the mid 1980s.

"Tonight" is essentially another undistinguished album of 1980s rock from FM, aimed at keeping the band viable through difficult times. If it did succeed, apparently it wasn't enough, for this would be the last major release by FM until 2015. Avoid.