Atmosphere

The Family Sign
Rhymesayers

I will be honest, Atmosphere’s latest full length, The Family Sign (Rhymesayers Entertainment, 2011), is not their best effort, especially the first time or two you listen to it. It’s very much one of those albums that takes a few days to grow on you. I’ve been listening to it pretty regularly for a couple of weeks and can now honestly say that my collection would be a lesser thing without The Family Sign in it. I always have a hard time with artists slowing down over the years and calling it maturity, but in this case, that seems fairly accurate. Sure, there is still the irreverent wordplay you would expect from Slug (he does the talktalk) and Ant (he makes the beats) still gets to go nuts on a couple of tracks, but overall, The Family Sign feels like a really mellow sequel to their last major effort, When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but in this case, the newer definitely ends up the inferior album. That said, if you have the patience to give an album five to seven listens to really grow on you, then The Family Sign is definitely worth your fifteen bucks.



Hits: “Became” “My Notes” “Something So” and “Millenium Dodo.”

Misses: Really only “Bad Bad Daddy” bugged me enough to fall into this category. “She’s Enough” initially annoyed me but has since become one of four songs that I almost always listen to again immediately after it finishes.

Overall: B-

daveSMASH / movementNORTH