FM – Thirteen

6/10

With the main members from the breakout days around AOR classic Indiscreet (1986) still in the band, FM of today sounds quite as you’d imagine, although some slight modernities have snuck their way in. Overall, it’s no new classic, but a solid performance of good AOR music all the same!

The album stretches over many shades of the classic sound we all know, from the slight modern touch in opening track Shaking the Tree, through rock ‘n’ roller Every Man Needs a Woman, to the laidback Long Road Home. But the main focus lies on what FM has always done best, melodic hit tunes. And we get that in the lovely highlights Waiting On Love and Turn This Car Around.

Still, the album doesn’t take off to any greater heights. It strolls on quite pleasantly like a walk in the spring sun that AOR albums so often do, but overall it’s no insant classic. If you know your FM or classic AOR, you know what kind of album this is. But if you dig FM or classic AOR, Thirteen is not a bad album to check out. It has got the sound, the voice and the tunes just right. It’s just slightly standard.

Artist: FM
Title: Thirteen
Label: Frontiers
Date of release: 18/3-22
Time: 54,46
Rate: 6/10
Stand Out Track: Turn This Car Around