JET LAG

This is the first PFM album I've ever heard, and I'm 39 years old, which means I've wasted 38 years looking for something that was there all along. Jet Lag is mid-period PFM, not the best stuff in the barrel, and yet it immediately vaunted the band ahead in my mind. Imagine the better parts of Brand X and Gentle Giant combined, sung with a slight Peter Gabriel affectation, and you'll see why PFM is AOK with most prog fans. I'd still recommend starting with Genesis and Gentle Giant, but you shouldn't be wasting your money on GG's later albums (The Missing Piece, Giant For A Day) until you've delved into PFM. English isn't their strength, so you wouldn't mistake the lyrics for poetry, but on a track like "Traveler" you might mistake the band for vintage Genesis, and that's a mirage worth following. In defining the band's sound, it's really a sum of their parts: vocalist Bernardo Lanzetti sounds most like a less-convincing Peter Gabriel (think of a small Fish), fretless bassist Patrick Djivas invites comparison to Brand X's Percy Jones, keyboardist Flavio Premoli could be a cross between Tony Banks and Soft Machine's Mike Ratledge, and so on. In other words, PFM stays within the soft fusion/prog field for the bulk of Jet Lag. Drummer Franz Di Ciccio and guitarist Franco Mussida are outstanding, and it's tempting to think how good they could have been in a band like Gentle Giant. Part of the purpose of Progrography is to turn listeners on to new artists, and if I've pushed at least one person in the direction of PFM, I've done my job. I wouldn't suggest starting your PFM collection with Jet Lag, but no harm done if you do. There are a handful of tracks like "Jet Lag," "Cerco La Lingua" and "Traveler" that will tickle the tastebuds of prog connoisseurs and keep them hungry for more. In that spirit, onward and backward to Chocolate Kings!