Family - Fearless (1971)

Forty years ago today, the British rock band Family released their landmark album Fearless, and to recognize that anniversary, I offer here my review of the album from my Family page. I originally wrote this in October 2002. :-)

This album, released in October 1971, is the masterpiece, the best album Family ever made. My opinion is admittedly biased, as this was the first Family album I ever got (on vinyl, no less), but I stand by it. Everything the group had become known for over the previous three years - curious arrangements, abrupt tempo changes, imaginatively abstract lyricism, stellar musicianship - clicked together here like a well-made combination lock. The group's quest for innovation paid off handsomely on Fearless, with the band offering its tightest, most cohesive performances and an adventurous sampling of different rock styles. Like A Song For Me, Fearless is superb from beginning to end, but Fearless is better - albeit only slightly better - for two reasons. One is Fearless's superior production, owing to the band's greatly improved command of technical skills in the recording studio. The other factor was the result of their latest personnel change.

In June 1971, John Weider, having grown tired of playing the bass as his principal instrument, left the group. He was quickly replaced by an ambitious 22-year-old musician named John Wetton, whose steady, economical pacing anchored the music with great subtlety. Also, Wetton was an accomplished singer in his own right, offering a magnificent, unencumbered voice that stood out on its own and blended wonderfully with Roger Chapman's voice - no small achievement - in harmony arrangements. Chapman remained the center of attention, though, as his primitive bleating and the undeniably powerful passion that fueled it continued to make for decidedly uneasy (but still intriguing) listening.

Fearless documents Family boldly blazing through treacherous terrain. In addition to Wetton's bass and his and Chapman's vocals, Charlie Whitney's guitar navigates twisting (and twisted) chords, Rob Townsend's drumming eases the band through slow tempos and propels them through rapid ones, and Poli Palmer contributes complex piano performances along with intricate vibraphone playing. (Plus, for the first time on a Family LP, synthesizers.) Family wastes no time in setting their course, as demonstrated on the opening cut, "Between Blue And Me." The gentle riff from a solitary guitar pulls you in as Chapman's intially gentle and earnest voice sings of longing for a lost friend. As the sound slowly builds, with a bass and bongos slipping into the mix, images of a vast, empty sea swell in the lyrics and the music. Then the unexpected happens - a searing electric riff breaks the receding calm, and a cacophonous rhythm conjures up stormy, churning waters. The lyrics - now delivered by Chapman in a hideous screech - speak of betrayal and abandonment with tension that could snap at any moment - but doesn't. It is oddly exhilarating and terrifying at once - powerful, chilling music that slowly grabs you and doesn't let go.

Having thrown down the gauntlet, Family take the opportunity to display an earthy sensibility in a variety of unorthodox fashions throughout. "Sat'd'y Barfly" is a stunted ragtime romp in which Chapman, doing a good imitation of Rod Stewart, sings with bravado of visiting a seedy bar on the wrong side of town, getting drunk, and picking up a woman; the muted brass and sly maracas help add to the intrigue. By contrast, "Save Some For Thee," a song about enjoying the "living for free," finds Chapman and Wetton sharing lead vocals along a piano riff that starts strong, slows down, then starts up again - pop style without the pop sound. (It ends, curiously, with a marching-band brass and drum ensemble!) Palmer gets to sing his own composition "Larf and Sing," delivering lyrics about aging and isolation brilliantly against a Latin-tinged guitar and his own dexterous flute. It all leads up to a hilarious group harmony on the choruses, offsetting the fatality of the verses.

Family really let loose, though, on the incomprehensible "Take Your Partners" - a backward drum intro ushers in a tight jam, with Whitney and Wetton playing a smoldering blues riff in perfect synchronization, while a strange synthesizer line fades in and out of the background. Finally, the band steps aside and allows Chapman to scream out what is all but a declaration of war: "God knows I'm hip, but I ain't yours or his - everybody's ass is up for kicks!" Subsequent lines make less sense - Chapman's admonition "Here, boy, have a snake / That's where you're sleeping and I'll wake / But don't strut me and my way" has defied explanation for years. On the other hand, Chappo can sing "Can you lend me thirty quid for petrol?" and make it sound like great rock and roll, so who am I to wonder what the hell he's talking about?

While Family has a lighter side on Fearless, it is by no means soft. The bewitchingly terrifying "Spanish Tide" is ostensibly a folk rocker, but don't expect James Taylor. A haunting harpsichord introduces the song, the acoustic guitars dissolve into melancholia, and Wetton's bass digs a trench for the rhythm to move through, complemented by Wetton's desparate vocal. By contrast, "Children," a pleasant ballad, is more optimistic, and Chapman shows unexpected gentleness in his delivery, but the halting rhythm undercuts the sweetness of the words. Family puts other so-called "progressive" rock bands to shame as well with Poli Palmer's "Crinkly Grin," a jazz instrumental led by Palmer's vibraphone. It doesn't go off into the wilderness like the classical workouts of, say, Emerson, Lake and (Carl) Palmer do; it lasts 65 seconds before fading out. You're left wanting more of it, not less.

The culmination of Family's intense experimentation on Fearless comes in the two final tracks. "Blind" rushes out with plodding, slashing meld of guitars and bass while the drums swing from left to right. As the arrangement - if it can be called that - picks up steam, Chapman roars in, screeching out lyrics warning the blind and the deaf of all the pain and suffering they'd be witness to if they could see or hear. As the band continues its assault, Chapman offers a warning to those in power responsible for the world's ills that their time is going to come. The closing song, "Burning Bridges," presents a creeping guitar line with a slow Gothic overtone, and Chapman's voice eerily resembles that of Peter Gabriel as he sings of being taunted by spirits even as anonymous holy men exploit his faith in God. The song says as much about organized religion as all of Jethro Tull's morality-play songs put together. Small wonder that Tull leader Ian Anderson himself, like many others, considered Family criminally underrated.

Fearless is a challenging and demanding work that lives up to its title; Family was not afraid to go where other bands dared not tread, even as the group remained true to its rhythm-and-blues roots. In short, it's a re-affirmation of everything rock and roll is meant to be. The sleeve was no less innovative; it featured computer-generated portraits of the band members along the edge of a page diagonally cut in serpentine fashion, with four layered and similarly cut pages visible underneath showing the pictures melding into a blur. (Of course, Castle Music was unable to replicate this with the CD edition.) The album not only peaked at number fourteen in the U.K., it even made a dent on the Billboard charts in the U.S. After the first Family LPs issued in America by United Artists, A Song For Me and Anyway, failed to chart, Fearless bubbled at the bottom of the Top Two Hundred album listings (peaking at number 177) and got radio airplay from intrigued DJs. Finally, Americans - albeit a handful of them - were beginning to listen.

(The original die-cut sleeve for the Fearless album on vinyl, opened out.)