“Last year was a hard for such a long time, this year is going to be ours.”
You know when a huge movie blockbuster comes out the same weekend as a little no-name film? Like when Star Trek came out the same day as Next Day Air? Well that’s not a perfect example at what I thought of Akron/Family’s latest album, “Set’em Wild, Set’em Free,” but it’s close. When it comes to making free spirited folk-rock accessible, no one is doing it better than Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear right now.
Enter the well-respected and always diverse Akron/Family. If you’ve listened to 2007′s “Love Is Simple,” you know that this band is up there with the giants when it comes to experimental folk music. However this year’s “Set’em Wild, Set’em Free” seem to try to ride the accessible experimental folk train but end up barely hanging on. This does not mean it’s a bad album in the least bit. In fact that album is a blast with a host of unlikely instruments. The results are stunning, the complete antithesis of modern folk rock. Even that understates the depths of the now trio’s effortless vocal harmonies and gently woozy, dream-like feel. Of their contemporaries only the enigmatic Midlake and My Morning Jacket at their most rocking come close, but neither could have cooked up the Zeppelin-esqe spiritual of “Everyone Is Guilty” or its more emotionally epic companion “Gravelly Mountains of the Moon”. In fact Akron/Family’s “Set’em Wild, Set’em Free” is not about trying to be the “best indie folk band of 2008,” they’re more or so doing their own thing despite this influx of experimental folk coming down the pipe. It’s a dedication to ancient English folk songs and their later American descendants as well as 70s balls-out classic rock. They might get swept under the rug this year, but don’t let that stear you away.
B-
Purchase .
Akron/Family – Many Ghosts