The Family Rain is a band comprised of three brothers from Bath. The trio formed in 2011 and signed to Mercury Records the following year. The band’s single Trust Me I’m A Genius quickly became popular amongst fans but also gained The Family Rain a good reputation amongst critics.
This year was a big year for The Family Rain, who has been touring all over Europe whilst also supporting the likes of Jake Bugg and Miles Kane plus cruising the festival circuit. EF wanted to know what the fuss was all about and decided to go check them out at their headline show at London’s Heaven.
We hadn’t been to Heaven in quite a while and more impressive than the venue’s new lay out was the quality of the sound system. The Family Rain came onto the stage and just after a few chords we knew that this would be a loud gig. The band got to the stage whilst Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire was playing, which we thought didn’t add much to the performance instead we enjoyed The Family Rain’s own material. Filled with big guitar riffs, deep bass hooks and an impressive sound the band’s tracks like Carnival, Pushing It and Friction all sounded big. We were rather impressed by the scale of the band’s sound considering there are only three members but what it lacked in numbers it didn’t in decibels. Another key feature of The Family Rain was how well the dynamics worked between the brothers and the confidence that each of them oozed. William Walter is a great frontman with lots of charisma and the crowd certainly agreed.
We heard a lot of tracks from the band’s back catalogue and the influences were anything from alternative, blues to indie rock. The Family Rain promised a heavy sound and it did get heavier but it was also quite melodic. Some of the tracks bared resemblance to the work of the likes of Oasis and Arctic Monkeys and quite often during the set we were distracted whilst trying to work out what band they reminded us of.
The set was well balanced with some calmer interludes between the heaviest tracks, which showed the band’s understanding of good shows. Trust Me I’m a Genius marked the end of a show to much acclaim.
We’re happy we finally got to see The Family Rain live even though we weren’t blown away. We feel the band delivered a great show last night to the delight of their fans.
