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Love Is Simple | Review
Jeff Klingman | Prefixmag.com
The swells always creep back down into the gentle lilt that preceded them
A few days ago, Stereogum dropped the first hints of Akron/Family’s second full length album, Love is Simple, due to hit shelves next month. Though nominally an avant folk group, the Akrons have always seen fit to leave their strum and bleat motif at the drop of a straw hat to get much, much more expansive in scope. A back porch ballad was liable to birth a Radiohead anthem, a Zeppelin riff monster, a prog wack out, or a sweet Beatles’ harmony so unexpectedly that iPod malfunction could be reasonably inferred. So when the soft stoned meditations on perspective begin “Phenomena” meekly in their Wayne Coyne-ish manner, the informed listener is ready and waiting for the change-up. In this case, we get an in flux of bluesy guitar and a chorus of voices for emphasis. The structure here isn’t as free form as the band tends to employ, however. The swells always creep back down into the gentle lilt that preceded them.If the band has truly reigned in their sound and decided on a more regimented method of hopping from genre to genre, it will be news. For now, this being a teaser and all, let’s be content to our curiousity yet suspicious that there will be more unhinged moments waiting inside the album proper.