With their seventh full-length album and their first one in three years, this indie-rap group releases a more sophisticated album than the usual indie-rap groups. The usual indie-rap albums are filled with tracks that are all about self-pity and placing blame on other people for their actions and problems in their lives. The tracks on this album are filled with stories about relationships with family and friends and how they can define themselves to a person through their relationship with them. Atmosphere did lots of things right on this album. Anthony Davis’ (known as Ant) production on the album is great. The tracks supporting Slug’s words are more sophisticated than the tracks you here supporting the more popular rap artists.
While some of the content in the lyrics are some what similar to their past albums, The Family Sign offers much more instrumentation than usual. This is also their first album that features live instruments. Slug and Ant brought in keyboardist Erick Anderson and guitarist Nate Collis (who they usually tour with) to record on a studio album.
The Family Sign has a different feel to it compared to their older albums. This was a problem that lots of Atmosphere fans had with the release of the album. Although it’s a little different, is just as good as ever and I think both fans and newcomers can appreciate this album.
Although the album has some good content, one could argue that the album lacks in some ways. The Family Sign truly seemed like a more indie album as opposed to a hip-hop album due to the fact that there were no stand out or truly grasping songs. On most popular albums there is that one song that sticks with people (usually the single). With “She’s Enough” being the most popular song on the album, it still isn’t enough of a stand out song. There aren’t any songs that have the wow factor to them, but I would say that most of them are good. “My Notes” was personally a favorite of mine, the disappointment of it was the length. It was the shortest song off of the album, and it left me wanting more and not in a good way either. Another one of my favorites was “Became”. The instrumentation behind it is simple yet detailed. Each song has one main thing that carries it, and makes it noticeable. For example the bass line in “If You Can Save Me Now”, and the guitar riffs in “The Last To Say” and “Just For Show”. “Bad Bad Daddy” and “Ain’t Nobody” are the disappointment tracks on the album. They sound clumsy, cluttered, and as if they were just thrown together.
The album has a very dark feel to it. All of the songs cover dark and traumatizing situations, and although it’s relating to real life situations and it can be viewed as unique (especially for rap), it can get boring. An album should showcase multiple different sides to a band or group, and this album only showed one. Another issue I had with this album was that the instrumentation seemed to over power the vocals, while listening to it, the instruments sounded more prominent than the vocals. I don’t know if it was a flaw in the production or whether it was Slug’s fault. It’s not because the lyrics themselves lack anything, because reading and truly listening to the lyrics show that they are compelling.
Overall, Atmosphere has put out an enjoyable album, and while there are some minor flaws, I think Atmosphere did mostly right with this album.
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