REVIEW: ATMOSPHERE – THE FAMILY SIGN

Atmosphere
The Family Sign
Rhymesayers

Six studio albums and several more E.P.s in is an impressive feat for any band but you’d get long odds indeed on an independent rap group from the Midwest surviving and thriving for this long. Like distance runners, Ant and Slug have settled into a measured pace and played to their strengths on latest album The Family Sign.

Slug sounds less like he has something to prove than his early Rhymesayers and Anticon releases, and his lyrical content has found a middle ground between introspection, ambiguous metaphor and stories of his peers’ lives . His style and voice have softened over time but he still cuts through with themes from domestic violence to bad parenting.

Ant continues to be one of my favourite producers with a style that’s uses live instrumentation to achieve a sound more akin to post-rock or Tom Waits than anything you’re likely to hear from Just Blaze or Kanye. The Family Sign is all sparse guitar and key parts courtesy of Ant and Atmosphere’s touring band with a gorgeously melancholy feel. Atmosphere have always been an ‘albums band’ and this uses highs and lulls; hype and calm to make it a full-length composition rather than a collection of singles and fillers.

Starting to occupy a position in the music industry that used to be the preserve of A.O.R. bands, Atmosphere are still independent (although distributed and promoted by Warners) and are free to explore stylistic and lyrical themes not normally found in hip-hop but are shifting the kind of units that bother the top end of the Billboard charts. It’s something they’ve achieved through 15 years of relentless touring, an impressive work ethic and a novel approach and it’ll be fascinating to see where they’ll be in another 15.

Kieran Hadley