Family
Old Songs New Songs

The title of this 1971 album by Family refers to the characteristic of containing not new songs but already in the repertoire, drawn from singles released outside of albums, their B-sides equally unreleased on long format, but above all some partial remakes and remixes, carried out involving the new musicians who recently joined the lineup.

All these years, I still haven't managed to pinpoint my personal idea and evaluation regarding this band with its multifaceted, ever-changing music. At first glance, Family would seem like a British folk rock ensemble modeled after Fairport Convention, but there's that voice… so spirited, vibrant, dramatic, intense and unsettling, so not very folk, in short. And then the sax solos, the vibraphone inlays… a rock jazz rhythm & blues mishmash constantly semi-acoustic and semi-psychedelic, yet always different from song to song.

The super vocalist Roger Chapman bites his lip in the quieter episodes, in this album represented mainly by the gorgeous "Today", a bewildering mix of arpeggios and voice reminiscent of early Genesis (who drew a lot from Family and their singer), a plaintive lap steel guitar and crashes of cymbals terribly similar respectively to those of Gilmour and Mason on "Saucerful of Secrets" and "More," rather limping choruses, intimate atmosphere, imprecise, naive... and delightful! A scent of instinctive and sober art.

Other delicate moments are the descriptive "Hometown" and the slightly pop acoustic ballad in Jethro Tull style "No Mule’s Fool", but it is in the more tight and rhythmic episodes that Chapman's fiery extroversion kicks in and floods with passion and harshness the calm trot of his fellow musicians. The opener "Hung Up Down" is illustrative in this regard: some connection with contemporary Jethro's "Benefit" especially for the flute flights (weak, in comparison) but Chapman's powerful singing, his fast, hoarse, dramatic vibrato communicate quite different tension and this time it's Anderson's group that succumbs to the comparison. Listen to it also in "Observation From a Hill": a unique, disturbing style.

The instruments that remain most impressed are primarily the acoustic and/or electric strum of Charlie Whitney, an all-instinct guitarist, imprecise but passionate, even too hurried (on "Drowned in Wine" the staccato electric is completely out of tune! And the whole track is a drunken mess, title included...) and then the violin, truly moving in its deep double-stop riff on "Peace Of Mind". Whitney is, among other things, the one who inspired Jimmy Page in the use of the double-neck 6 and 12 string on stage, an instrument that can be admired right on this cover.

I am much less engaged by the jazz inlays of piano, saxophone, and vibraphone… the latter always quite estranged from the context, for instance in "Good Friend of Mine". Apart from the ample palette of instruments, the album lacks nothing in terms of compositional variety: "The Cat and the Hat" is a semi-acoustic boogie, "See Through Windows" a rather sinister affair in the Black Widow manner even, "The Weaver’s Answer" in closing one of their most known pages, almost placed here on purpose to elevate the album's appeal.

I will never get to grips with Family: their music, for some reason, doesn’t stick in my head, elusive; sometimes it bores me, at other times I find it delightfully honest and personal.