Privilege Records (label)
06 November 2015 (released)
07 November 2015
What happens when you put three musicians with some serious studio and gig time behind them in one room?
It’s an experiment that could, of course, go drastically wrong.
The Family Silver sees Matt Deighton (Mother Earth), Damon Minchella (Ocean Colour Scene) and Steve White (Style Council, Paul Weller) join up for Electric Blend, a co-written album of melodic, classic rock.
Thankfully, from the outset, there’s soulfulness to this, the band’s first album.
With two-thirds of The Family Silver having spent much of their careers in the company of the Modfather, comparisons with The Style Council and Paul Weller will no doubt follow this album everywhere it goes.
But Electric Blend stands tall, and the closest it comes to such comparisons is on the breezy Peace & Love (Don’t It Feel Good?).
The stirring Only (From Out Of The Ashes) starts with piano and ends with strings, while raw, groovy opener and title track, An Electric Blend will draw in fans of Kasabian, as should the positively prickly Give Up Your Tears.
The album, for which the band used crowd-funding to get off the ground, changes pace several times but somehow avoids sounding fragmented. The tight, A Newer Yesterday presses the funk button, while Yeah No’s acoustic guitar solo brings the album to a mellow end.
Standout track From Out Of The Blues is the band at its best, driven by White’s drumming, Minchella’s deep bass and the vocal versatility of Deighton, who fronted ‘90s acid jazz group Mother Earth.
The 12-track album is, as the band intends, an album – or as they put it, a “rare commodity” in the age of the download. The trio’s musical CVs and respective influences are evident throughout, but never overbearing.
