The Family Sign: Atmosphere's Newest Album

Hip Hop's best storyteller is back with a new album. The Family Sign is a deep new addition to Atmosphere's list of spectacular productions. Minneapolis' best emcee is once again joined by producer Ant to make this moody sound that is carried throughout most of the album. It is practically the perfect sound for Atmosphere, allowing for narration of tales losing friends and family struggles.

The constant dreariness is somewhat dull and is unsuccessfully broken by random songs like "She's Enough." This is an upbeat song about the person in your life who you live for, not very well mixed with the other songs on the track list. This is the one thing that sets this album apart is the fact that there is not really any humor in any of the songs. The albums first single, "Just For Show" is a good balance of what to expect from the rest of the tracks. It is a song about having troubles in a relationship but not really wanting it to end. The music video puts a good spin on the meaning of the song by using a dog as the main character. In the video a dog is sick of being forgotten about, and decides to run away only to discover that he misses his family.

Other than a few songs on the album the majority of songs are poetic and artistic. "The Last to Say" seems to be the jewel of The Family Sign. This song tells the tale of domestic abuse and how it effects the son of a deadbeat dad. This is one of the only songs on the album I feel like I need to press replay again and again. It is a very good example of Slug's artistic ability to tell stories with the first verse:

"As far back as he cares to remember,
he used to see his old man lose the temper.
And Mama's pretty face would catch it all.
On a regular basis the nest would fall.
But he was always safe from dads rage
cause mama sacrifice in his place."



Another great song from the The Family Sign is "Became." It is a story about a man waking up at a camp site only to find that his friend is gone. He follows his tracks but only to find that he loses sense of them. It is a heavily metaphorical story about following friends and ending relationships.

Atmosphere continues to be my favorite artist and even the songs I didn't particularly find amazing are still worth hearing. I would give The Family Sign a 9/10.