ALBUM REVIEW: The Family Business Ltd – The Family Business Ltd (Hellcat Records)
The Family Business Ltd are a UK-based ska collective with a heavy US influence and this is their debut album.
The core of the band are Jordan Cardy (Rat Boy), Preston (The Ordinary Boys), and Antonee First Class (The English Beat), with Operation Ivy’s Tim Armstrong and Jesse Michaels as creative collaborators.
Cardy and Preston first met in Essex in 2014, and they ended up in Los Angeles in 2023 writing with Armstrong, who suggested bringing in Antonee, and with labelmates The Calamatix as their backing band, The Family Business Ltd was complete.
Bringing together multiple generations of ska lovers, from two-tone toasting to noughties revivalist spirit, it hits the ground running with lead single Floor Burner, which, like the album as a whole, has the unmistakeable fingerprints of Rancid’s Armstrong all over it.
It’s an enormously upbeat album, with 10 tracks hurtling by in 23 minutes, full of upstroke guitars, jaunty basslines, propulsive drums and ‘whoah, oh’ vocal fills.
Standouts include Detonator, which has a lovely bouncing rhythm and some gorgeous keys, while latest single Bambi slows things down enough to allow the skankers time to catch their breath.
Still A Jamaican, with its wonderful wandering bassline, sounds like a cross between The Beat and The Specials circa 1979, while Armageddon is the song which sounds most like The Ordinary Boys, who dipped a toe into ska waters on second album Brassbound, covering Rudi’s In Love.
I hope this isn’t a one-off album, as there’s lots of promise here, and I’d love to see The Family Business Ltd live. 8/10.
