Altsounds - Le Loup - Family [Album]

Often the true test of a great band, is their ability to not only influence others, but inspire excellence from them. It’s far easier to influence the talentless and deluded, than it is to inspire those with talent to take a certain direction or simply to take up music in the first place. Pixies inspired many fantastic bands, including Radiohead and Nirvana, but taking the latter as an example of how difficult it is to inspire excellence, the world has been rife with Puddles of Nickelcreed ever since Kurt Cobain’s death.

Having been around for ten years, Animal Collective are now at the stage where the fruits of their neighbours, literally in Baltimore’s Le Loup’s case, are really beginning to ripen. Having released the impressive The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly in 2007, Le Loup have thankfully followed it up with both a shorter titled and even more impressive album in Family; a perfect blend of AC’s Sung Tongs and Panda Bear’s Person Pitch. That Le Loup have taken inspiration from Baltimore’s finest is unquestionable, but what they have also done is taken that influence and inspiration and created something that warrant’s its place alongside its stimulus.

If you take the term folk music and the German expression ‘Volk’ (“the people as a whole”) from which it is derived then it is more likely in this day and age that you would be describing the kind of dreadful pop music that pollutes the charts of most nations that record them. However if you use the expression as it is classically applied, then it is still a genre in which Family rather snugly fits. It uses simple ingredients to create something honest and memorable. There is no pretention, no agenda other than to communicate thoughts or feelings through music. From the cheering tones of one of the world’s most underrated instruments, the banjo, to the warming monk choir-like vocals that permeate throughout, Family is the sound of pure contentment and is almost impossible not to fall in love with.

Opening with the medieval bard rhapsody of “Saddle Mountain” Family is as loving and attentive throughout, never once straying into self indulgence as is sometimes the want of their Baltimore brethren. “Grow”, “Morning Song” and the title track are all meditative campfire songs, until just over the half way point, “Family” kicks in to become a more rousing affair for a fleeting moment, before the even more fantastic “Forgive Me” takes that mantle and really marches with it; only a fool wouldn’t follow. It would be a downhill march from here for most bands, but such is the consistency of Family and its constant generosity, Le Loup still offer up the splendour of tracks such as “Sherpa” and “Naehkahnie”.

In the age of the iPod, it’s encouraging to know that there are still bands producing albums that work as a whole document, not just a collection of discordant singles and obligatory filler. Each and every track on Family ties together beautifully, justifying their place without question or doubt and creating a whole that leaves no need to be filled. If Animal Collective go on to stand a true test of time then there is every promise that with them will be preserved a band of equal majesty in Le Loup; and even if not...you’ll always be able to rely on Family.

Track List:

01 Saddle Mountain
02 Beach Town
03 Grow
04 Morning Song
05 Family
06 Forgive Me
07 Go East
08 Golden Bell
09 Sherpa
10 Neahkahnie
11 A Celebration