City of Fear

Personnel: Ben Mink (vocals, mandolin, electric mandolin, violin); Cameron Hawkins (vocals, synthesizer, bass guitar); Pamela Silverstein (spoken vocals); Martin Deller (drums, percussion, electronic percussion).
Liner Note Author: Malcolm Dome.
Recording information: House Of Music, West Orange, NJ; Phase One, Toronto; Soundstage, Toronto, Ontario.
The last album FM released before going into hiatus, City of Fear showed the band moving more toward a pop sound while still retaining a firm grip on their progressive rock tendencies; though you could certainly point toward either Rush or Yes as comparison points for the sound of this album, it would probably be more accurate to look at the forward-thinking Peter Gabriel albums from around the same period. The production is very crisp, songs are fairly tightly written, and there's a fairly dark and menacing edge to the sound here -- keyboards and other electric/electronic instruments add a fairly dissonant edge to the otherwise traditional songwriting, which adds a very fitting claustrophobic feel for an album so titled. ~ Sean Carruthers