Search - Family :: Music in a Doll's House

Debut of Family stuns thirty years on.

loce_the_wizard | 08/03/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Beautiful to have this original work lovingly remastered after a couple of decades of very worn vinyl. What made Family innovators was the songwriting team of Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney. Be it psychedelia or British music hall, folk or straight up rock, there was no confusing Family with any other band of it's era. Listen to producer Dave Mason's (Traffic) headphone ready mix on classics The Chase and See Through Windows, to see how this album holds up thirty years on. The lone Ric Grech tune ,Hey Mr. Policeman takes on a new melancholy with his passing. Enigmatic as this band was, the real mystery was how strong an impact they had on the Isles and how unjustly this recording was ingnored on this side of the Atlantic. Yet timeless is timeless and here's your opportunity. Highly recommended!"

One of the greatest psychedelic albums I've ever heard

BENJAMIN MILER | Veneta, Oregon | 12/05/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Music in a Doll's House, well, what can I say? Unlike a lot of their psychedelic contemporaries of the time, like Jefferson Airplane, this one really stands the test of time real well. While a lot of the studio effects like phasing is rather dated sounding, it works real well here. To me, this album sounds exactly like how Traffic's Mr. Fantasy would sound like if it was fronted by Peter Gabriel (although Roger Chapman's voice has much more vibrato). In fact, this album was produced by Dave Mason, so that explains a lot. And it's also well known that Family had a big influence on Genesis during their early days. That's why "Mellowing Grey" sounds like something off From Genesis to Revelation, although this one is much better than anything on that album, because of better production and even a real Mellotron. Music in a Doll's House also features Richard Grech, pre-Blind Faith, so that's one for all you trivia buffs out there. Other goodies on this album are "Winter Time", "Mr. Policeman", "See Through Windows", and "The Breeze". Most of these songs are short, but they are just so amazing. I understand Family did much better in Britain than America. It's either Roger Chapman's voice didn't go down too well with American audiences, or the fact the band's relationship had soured with Fillmore promotor Bill Graham when they had a fistfight with him at the Fillmore East. But whatever the case, Music In a Doll's House is a wonderful example of the psychedelic 1960s, and of all the albums in this genre from that time I've heard (Jefferson Airplane, Iron Butterfly, The Doors, Electric Prunes, even early Traffic), this by far the best one and holds up best to repeated listens (something I can't say with a lot of those other bands of the time)."