Well, that coincides for a reason. It was after Slade in Flame (the album und film) and before Nobody's Fools (the album) that Slade decided that they had gone as far as they could in the UK and that they needed to crack America which hat eluded them up to then. And for America they decided to de-glam and leave their more outrageous outfits at home. They opened for dressed-down stadium acts like Humble Pie, heard how Uriah Heep had taken glamorous Marc Bolan/T. Rex to the cleaners night after night opening for him and realized that things were different in the US and that they henceforth had to be too.
And Nobody's Fools (the album) was awash with US musical influences, not just the song Nobody's Fool though the black background chicks of course say it all.
When I saw them first live in 1977/78, they were a well-honed US stadium opening act, geared to making a maximum impact within 45 minutes, a real force of nature, with Jim Lea climbing on PA stacks for a flashy bass solo already during the second or third song into their set. They played like they had no time to waste, even lightly frantic.
Of course, US radio play and, consequently, record sales never matched, so their ambitious plan to conquer America failed in the end.
