Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: May 12, 2024
Production: FM
Album length: 51:04 min
Genre: AOR
Rating: 8.5/10
FM, the legendary British champions of AOR and melodic rock, are back with their fourteenth album in a long-running career. There would have been even more of them if FM hadn’t gone quiet between 1995 and 2010. But between 2010 and 2024 they’ve more than made up for it, and the latest record makes it nine studio albums in a row.
Old habits die hard. Especially when they keep dealing you winning poker aces, which is my way of hinting that the new album “Old Habits Die Hard” is yet another thoroughbred FM creation. From head to toe. The band is also celebrating its 40th anniversary with this one. According to vocalist Steve Overland, the new album brings together in one place all the essential ingredients behind the cult status of these truly genuine AOR legends from the British Isles. Not that Overland said anything special there that the band’s followers didn’t already know.
After the band released its last studio album “Thirteen” (RockLine review) in 2022, the follow-up was originally planned for much earlier. FM had to push back the release of “Old Habits Die Hard” primarily because of keyboardist Jem Davis, who was diagnosed with cancer. By the band’s account, Jem is doing fine now and made it through surgery successfully. The other reason the album is late is the death of Steve’s brother, FM’s founding and original guitarist Chris Overland. So the new album isn’t dedicated solely to celebrating 40 years of the band, but also to the memory of the late Chris Overland.
Judging by the lyrics, the opening Out Of The Blue is a kind of tribute to the late Chris. A superb album that lays out the runway for the landing of that famous British AOR vessel of the eighties! In its approach – especially sonically, but also in the arrangements – “Old Habits Die Hard” leans more ‘eighties’ than its predecessor “Thirteen”. And not just its predecessor, but a few earlier albums too. The sound is definitely organic, warm and alive, but this time the band moved away a bit from the Hammond, which you barely notice, and went back to arranging the keyboard textures with a nostalgic eighties ring. You can also clearly pick out acoustic guitar lines in the dense spectrum of the production’s soundscape. And yes. As I said. The new album flirts incredibly successfully with the eighties, which is no discovery. Every FM album does. That’s clear. But the feeling is much more pronounced here thanks to the ‘softer’ production, as well as the arrangements themselves, which move away from the heavy emphasis on combining guitar phrasing with a Hammond-imitating sound. The crown jewel of this move so much closer to the eighties sound is definitely Whatever It Takes. Then there’s Black Water. It’s an exploratory track where the band caught its breath and loosened up its almost proverbial AOR songwriting recipe, which brings a pleasant bit of variety to the album.
Overland’s vocals remain fascinating. Fascinatingly, they’re back at the center of attention. A fantastic singer with a distinctly soulful flair in the way he picks his vocal lines, he once again sounds like he hasn’t aged an inch when you compare his range and output to the band’s classic albums like “Indiscreet” (1986) and “Though It Out” (1989).
With “Old Habits Die Hard”, FM stay exactly where the album title suggests. And that’s exactly the FM that fans of the band, and of the (today) very archaic, fossilized AOR genre itself, want! The generational torchbearers who put the genre on its feet in the eighties remain the only credible ones, even after the whole winding (and dusty) road of their career. Nobody can take that away from you. And that’s a fact. The latest FM record is also a thoroughly honest and direct imprint of this ‘pioneering rhetoric’. Devilishly skillfully internalized and carried with maturity into new times.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Out of the Blue (4.21)
2. Don’t Need Another Heartache (4.35)
3. No Easy Way Out (3.54)
4. Lost (5.20)
5. Whatever It Takes (4.37)
6. Black Water (4.52)
7. Cut Me Loose (4.34)
8. Leap of Faith (4.05)
9. California (5.17)
10. Another Day in My World (4.14)
11. Blue Sky Mind (5.06)
Lineup:
Steve Overland – vocals, guitar
Merv Goldsworthy – bass
Pete Jupp – drums
Jem Davis – keyboards
Jim Kirkpatrick – guitar
