Last year, Akron/Family took their electro-psychedelic folk rock to the next level and produced one of the best albums of 2009, not to mention their strongest effort to date. [Photo by Sebastian Mlynarski.]
Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free possesses all the quality Akron/Family essentials — warm acoustic melodies and quiet blissful meditations, raw freak-outs and explosions of acid-washed noise, hushed poignant vocals trading off with exuberant choral harmonies and yell-chant choruses, lyricism touching on love, life, friendship, nature and spirituality.
But the band turned up the intensity and brought their ’60s rock and West African influences to the forefront. Propulsive riffage, heavy tempos and wall-of-sound crescendos mingle with twinkling polyrhythmic guitars and percussion-drenched drum grooves. Swells of horns, strings and other bright instrumental embellishments give the album a lush, well-produced appeal and the playing has gotten tighter and more focused overall. And while each song maintains its own distinctive character, the segues from one into the next feel natural and the album maintains a coherent narrative throughout.
“Set Em Wild was really about us sort of discovering each other. To me it’s a very emotional album,” Miles Seaton explained when we chatted by phone a few weeks back. SWSF is the band’s fourth studio album and first release with Dead Oceans Records. It’s also their first studio effort as a three-piece.
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2010.