Akron/Family
Meek Warrior

"Gone completely beyond."

That's how the Akron/Family sing in "Gone Beyond", and after listening to "Meek Warrior" just once, you'll find it hard to disagree with them. In fact, I would add that they have indeed gone "beyond."

Residing in New York but of Norwegian origin, the four bearded Akron/Family bring to fruition the good things expressed in their debut, primarily folk, and in their subsequent split with the Angels Of Light, where noise and free jazz remnants emerged. "Meek Warrior" encompasses these two spirits, giving each its own space, reaching in their respective musical realms absolute creative heights.

The folk side (more or less contaminated) of Akron/Family has the extraordinary ability to make Nebraska border with Uttar Pradesh, American provincial rusticity with Buddhist mantras, fingerpicking and tablas. The title track and "Gone Beyond" smell of wheat fields and sunlit verandas, "Lightning Bolt Of Compassion" evokes a Donovan in a mystical crisis lost in the Kashmiri desert, "No Space In This Realm" blends both suggestions, marrying percussion, acoustic guitars, subdued horns, in a psychedelic tail with a pastoral tone.

But it is the wild and unpredictable side that makes their music so fascinating. It takes just two tracks to leave the listener in awe, "Blessing Force" and "The Rider (Dolphin Song)". The first starts with a tribal beginning between sabbatical liturgy and cannibal dance, flows into a stadium chant sung by stutterers with serious mental issues, and arrives at a free-reined acoustic guitar jam joined by a noisy ending with the addition of a crazy Zorn-style sax. "The Rider (Dolphin Song)" is no less, giving us seven minutes battled between medieval rhythms worthy of Dead Can Dance's "Aion" and sudden impulses of pure noise schizophrenia, with an out-of-tune and messianic choral singing.

A two-sided album, therefore, positioned at the antipodes, a direct reflection of its authors' schizoid personality, which can nevertheless be prone to many criticisms given its musical inconsistency. But if you loved musical ensembles like the Fugs and have no problems with personality splitting, "Meek Warrior" might just be for you.