The sound of this collection of music evokes thoughts of early Jamiroquai, the Brand New Heavies and Incognito: funky, upbeat and musically good. The songs are well written, and every song has some well thought-out performances from the members of the 'family'. However, there's something that isn't quite right about it. I find it hard to pinpoint what's wrong, but the music is very busy, and often there are things that have been done from a technical perspective that don't serve a purpose.

Here's an example: 'It's Alright' starts with a Rhodes piano, double-tracked vocal, wide-panned horns and a stabby electronic piano, which form an introductory first verse, before the song enters the first chorus. As far as I'm concerned, it would sound much better, and would fit into its genre far more convincingly, if there was just the Rhodes and single, centrally panned vocal, and maybe a bit of horny tinkery nearer the end of the section. The female vocal has great potential, but too much processing and not enough attention to detail at the recording stage. If you're going to double-track in quiet sections, make sure the vocalist's intonation is super-tight, and don't cover it up with unnecessary horn stabs!

I'm assuming that, as this is a collaboration between quite a few musicians and producers (who are, I must say, very talented), the busy sections are there for political reasons. Conversations like "Dave had a piano lick there, so why can't I have a sax riff?" and "Is there any space for my Clav line after Kat's flute trill?" can play havoc with a song.

I envisage a family-wide bun fight during a recording session, where the saxophonist and 'bone player are at each other with ciabattas, one of the five 'additional producers' is recording the vocalist at the desk, with the other four whacking each other with stale baguettes, and the three drum kit players are hurling wholemeal cobs across the control room, all of them fighting for the prestige of appearing on the record. Perhaps that's unfair, but I think if all the 16 members of the family thought about the record as a whole, rather than their own appearances, they would produce a far better end product. Chris Mayes-Wright