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Sunday, March 30, 2008

Family - Music in a Doll's House

Family's debut album released in 1968, is a wonderous prog-psychedelia album. This is a true massive undertaking for a group who were the proto types for Traffic and the Peter Gabriel-era of Genesis. Produced by Traffic's Dave Mason, Music in a Doll's House is one of the albums you'll play over and over again to enjoy a nice hot cup of tea. Tracks like the banging classical introduction of The Chase gives a good feel to start off the album, while the beauty of the melody of calmness with the mellotron of Mellowing Grey, and the heavy harmonica blues rocker of Old Songs for New Songs show Family in the influences of the Blues, Folk, Jazz, and a bit of an homage to Steve Winwood's previous group before Traffic, the Spencer Davis Group in a psychedelia format. The music can also be very JRR Tolkien like sound with the barbaric psych song of Me My Friend which is almost very Middle Age Rock music from the Medieval-era of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, they also do a take of Proto-Metal with a string quartet with a little bit of the Spencer Davis punk track of I'm A Man with Peace of Mind. Almost Beatle like material on that track, but very Hendrix to the mix of Traffic. Family's first album is one of the best albums I've listened to. I've listened to it about 5 times now on my iPod and they really show a prog rockin' sound with their influential roots inside the Doll's House.

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