Sean Daley, better known as Slug, is a storyteller. He and his producer Ant, make up the hip-hop duo Atmosphere. On their 2010 double-EP To All My Friends, Blood Makes The Blade Holy, Slug doesn't rap to encourage a behavior change or impart a good moral, but rather talks about what he knows. Every track on this EP was simple; Atmosphere created a glimmer of hope for its fans looking to innovative future albums.
The Family Sign was expected to have the same degree of Slug's arrogance that is normally present on Atmosphere's albums. Slug and Ant have been producing for over a decade, yet this album still fails to deliver on defying norms of mainstream hip-hop. Instead, Slug is a sad clown more than ever on The Family Sign, with songs that are clumsy and don't show any influence from today's hip-hop.
What distinctly defines Atmosphere is that their sound is organic where rap is typically synthetic. The internal dynamics of Atmosphere emanate honesty. Slug and Ant create a type of music they enjoy listening to and producing, drawing on their own pasts for inspiration. This is admirable, yet The Family Sign is way too focused on Slug's narratives, making his rhymes slow and simply boring. Each song is lonely and ominous; The Family Sign lacks soul.
As a teaser, the track ""Just For Show"" was released in February. Slug says: ""I'm painfully aware of my mistakes / And maybe you should break an escape from the situation / or take a little taste of the blame."" With a first listen it seems as if Slug is speaking to a past girlfriend, but really he is speaking to his fans. They say he's changed, he says they will come back to him. The Family Sign isn't necessarily the anthem that will carry him to a higher status.
Most tracks on The Family Sign are acoustic guitar and segments of piano, leaving little room for the dynamic flavor that was all over the duo's 2008 album When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold. ""The Last To Say"" is the epitome of the track that embodies the lost direction on this album. The theme of this song is filled with a domestic abuse narrative. It's intense, yet it's too slow to generate any attention. ""Let me be the last to say / You won't be okay"" is part of the chorus, but Slug's delivery is flat.
Each Atmosphere album has the singe of Slug's obsession with himself. He is still the same storyteller he was before, yet his narratives are vague and lack any kind of logic. ""If You Can Save Me Now"" is void of any momentum, and Slug's story of ""I try not to weigh you down / But I don't know if I can wait around"" is unoriginal. In an interview with Pitchfork Slug said ""Ultimately, I'm a rapper and I have to try and make myself cooler than I actually am,"" but Slug doesn't seem cool at all on this album. He is just dull.
Zoning out while listening to this album is bound to happen, and it can be blamed on Slug's overt delivery of each narrative. Yes, it is disappointing to admit that Slug and Ant completely lost the momentum they created in the last three years, but it is impossible to say The Family Sign is anything innovative.
The final track, ""My Notes,"" has the optimism and energy that every other song on the The Family Sign lacks. Though it is one of the shorter tracks on the album, Slug's integrity shines: ""As long as I can hit my notes / Imma stand top this box of soap."" Atmosphere has been a decade in the making, and they aren't finished. Though The Family Sign may be a rough patch, Slug and Ant will continue to be ever present in the hip-hop realm.
