Fergie Frederiksen
Any Given Moment

Fergie is back with a new album, and one that you can listen to at any given moment. At Any Given Moment is the title of this new album by good old Fergie, it follows his album from 2011 called Happiness is the Road which is an album that I like. This one has a nice cover artwork, it looks very fine from the outside. Being a former voice of Toto is something to be proud of but also something of a mark of quality I suppose considering the quality of most of the singers Toto has had. Saying that he was only singing on one album however, that is another matter. Even though I am not that impressed by someones past or fame so what about Fergie and his work. He has the usual Frontiers musicians doing band things for him, and Alessandro Del Veccio does the production, that is usually good as well. So what about this album then?

Musically we do not get anything very different, anything we haven’t heard before. There is even a Toto cover that was on the album Fergie sung on, and they have borrowed the intro from Hold the Line in the second song Let Go. Is it a pun towards Fergie? should he let his Totoisms go? This album is very Totoish, it walks in the footsteps of said band. It is catchy, melodic, Fergie sings very well and the production is excellent as is to be expected from a band on the Frontiers label. The musical performances are strong, the album may lack a little bit in variation as it is laid out like a fairly typical AOR album, no surprises here. The playing time is a bit on the long side with 56 minutes, playing times approaching the hour is a bit too much.

I find this album a good one. It is catchy and likeable, easily accessible and inoffensive. An album for anyone who likes solid AOR build on the cornerstones of the AOR genre, if you like that then you’ll find this album exciting. I don’t find it exciting but I find it very good, a likeable album plain and simple. It is played safe and one could accuse Fergie and whoever has written the songs for this album to be a bit unimaginative, but then they make it up in quality. I guess you could call it safe, inoffensive, easy listening, an album that will always work for anyone. The thing with such albums though, is that they won’t really fully appeal to anyone.

Impressive production, impressive musicianship, decent songwriting. It is an album to like and that is shining in the best of moments. And those moments are the title track, the opening track and the second track which borrows some stuff from Hold the Line. Those are the best moments but you can take any given moment and you can like that. So, I guess I have been writing in circles for long enough now, recommended for anyone who likes the earlier works of Fergie or who like classic AOR. I like it but I doubt this album will be one that I remember and there are better albums in the genre released this year.

HHHHHHH