A new leader of the Brooklyn pack, FAMILY combines lush classic rock flavor with modern progressive heaviness on its astonishing debut album, Portrait.The balance Family strikes is one perfected by precious few bands.To bring the vibes of our forefathers -- the finesse, the hooks, the grooves of say, Led Zeppelin -- into the modern day metal underground; to take a classic rock sense of musicality and use it to make something that's fiercely original, crushingly heavy and not "retro" at all... this is a fine line indeed, a delicate tension that is rarely achieved. Tool and Mastodon are two examples that come to mind, but there is also a bit of Unsane's savage blues and The Mars Volta's progressive carnival. Any way you choose to describe it, Family is undeniably its own beast -- a dynamic new voice in heavy music.