FM- Rockville

Having recorded over a dozen albums in their nearly 30 year career, this latest offering from British Melodic, Arena and Album Oriented Rock veterans FM shows that, no matter what people say, the 80s are not ready to give up the ghost quite yet. This album holds many of the things that made that decade of gloriously over the top music great: Loud guitars, massive keyboards, highly sing-able melodies, power ballads that require the waving of a lighter, and Anthemic numbers which, if played on a car stereo, tend to render speed limits obsolete. This album definitely holds up to recent work of similar artists who they have shared billings with, and surpasses many.

With a good mix of huge stadium anthems obviously penned for huge audiences to get going to (The album opener “Tough Love” is a fantastic example of this), this album also includes tracks that would be equally at home played in a smaller, club gig, such as “Wake Up The World”, which shows off a more blues-based, Hard Rock edge to the band’s sound. “Show Me The Way” then goes a long way to show that FM can play a Power Ballad to rival anybody around.

The major downside of the album is the fact that it does seem to try to remain firmly in the 80s, with minimal looking forward, which, at times, makes this seem like a bit of a nostalgia album, pining for “the glory days.”

Overall, however, the album is made up of a range of meat and potatoes classic rock, exactly what you’d expect from a band as classic and long-running as this. Definitely one for those with an old-school bent to their music taste.

7/10