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Rating: The term "family" in the name is more than a hint to understand the approach these four bearded young men of Norwegian origin have towards music. Music lived primarily as a communal, intimate, choral experience, played with fervent passion, almost touching upon a sacred hymn. Memories can run back to the many incarnations of this "familial" vision of music, in the form of hippie communities like Grateful Dead, Incredible String Band, or open artistic ensembles like Amon Düül and Amon Düül II, experiments now belonging to an "other" era and difficult to replicate today without the necessary "ifs" and "buts" of the case.
Akron/Family do not claim to present themselves as modern-day epigones of the aforementioned groups; they write songs in a self-referential and almost private manner, successfully blending influences and visions often distant from each other, making them difficult to classify within the American underground scene. In this split album with the patron of Young God Records (and former Swans) Michael Gira, they summarize, in just seven tracks, nearly 40 years of American music with commendable mastery and bold youthful courage. If the initial "Awake" presages landscapes between rural and bucolic, the following "Moment" better describes the scope of their musical vision: over a minute of furious noise improvisation that opens into a choral stomp led by an ultra-distorted bass, sung with fervor and religious devotion and ending with a cheerful country ballad. But the joys do not end here: the long "Future Myth" centrifuges the Byrds of 5th Dimension with certain Mercury Rev, sung a cappella with bursts of poor electronics; in "Dylan Part II" it seems to hear the most introspective Thom Yorke grappling with a zeppelinesque, lyrical, and tormented blues; "Raising The Sparks" recalls the Californians Mad River accompanying them in a tribal dance, among wild screams, Indian ragas, and Beach Boys-like choruses. The tracks named Angels Of Light (in which they still play, leaving Gira voice and guitar) settle on less disruptive formal territories, between reinterpretations of acoustic Dylan ("I Pity The Poor Immigrant"), saccharine lullabies ("One For Hope"), yet without forgetting to hit unexpectedly in the gut with claustrophobic murder ballads ("The Provider") and unsettling choruses like Rosemary’s Baby ("Come For My Woman").
Music for warm (auditory) organs.
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