PRESS
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Akron/Family, LIVE REVIEW
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Richard B. Simon | RELIX MAGAZINE The Independent, San Francisco, CA, 10/11/07My colleagues at Relix have been urging me of late to check out Akron/Family, as part of the rising psychedelic tide of the late mid zeroes. Their recent disc, Love Is Simple, doesn’t seem quite like rock ‘n’ roll so much as tribal jubilance, a bunch of people shouting and thumping and drumming and rejoicing vocally. Sonically clear and carefully produced, the Beatles on American Indian mysticism, instead of East Indian. Somewhere in there (“Crickets”) is the sound of summer in the humid temperate zone, peepers chirping and cicadas munching on leaves, and rubbing their legs together. Live, would they be crickets or guitars or drums or what? The answer is yes. Akron/Family came on quiet, but as those voices—those shouting singing voices—kicked in and in, they sucked you in off the street. Word was that they had been busting Dead covers. They look like Deadheads, for sure—rolled out of the bus, de-loused and freshly shorn of their dreadlocks—but they don’t sound like the Dead. Not so early in the night. Not until they want to. Akron/Family is a big party onstage, a dudefest, a street gang with joy......
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Liquid Pig | Review
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Evan Sawdey | popmatters.comLiquid Dreams - What makes an album truly “classicâ€?It’s kind of a record about addictions … but trying to see if you have them or not. Well, anyway, it’s kind of about that. —Lisa Germano, from the live intro to “It’s Party Time” Commonly, we call an album a classic because it’s merely groundbreaking. See: Pet Sounds. Or Daydream Nation. Or any one of the other countless LPs that make it onto those “Greatest Album of All Time” lists that comes out every six months or so. However, sales alone are never a judge of greatness. If that were the case, then we should be seeing a box-set for the complete recording sessions of Quiet Riot’s Metal Health sometime before Christmas. Not only does a “classic” LP have to have timeless songs, but it also has to be recognized as a classic—it’s a disc that’s actively sought after because so many people before have told you that it’s great (and are usually correct in that assumption). The Velvet Underground never broke any sales records, but just about every single record store in America has The Velvet Underground & Nico lying in its pop-rock corner, patiently waiting to......
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Love Is Simple | Review
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Jonathan Lee Riches | Ghettoblastermagazine.com Akron/Family wants you to love love love everyoneHipsters hate hippies. They also hate jam bands. But remember that "dude" in college who only listened to the really good Pink Floyd and Grateful Dead records. The one that taught everyone to like free jazz, had the best parties and was always really happy to see you? Well, Love is SImple is that guy. Akron/Family wants you to love love love everyone - along with that album title, there are two versions of the song "Love, Love, Love" - and honestly, what's wrong with that? You can never be to hip for a little fun and friendliness. -...
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Love Is Simple | Review
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Dan Shvartsman | 30music.com Love Is Simple, and such are the words the band lives by“Don’t be afraid, it’s only love.” So sing Akron/Family on their newest album, Love Is Simple, and such are the words the band lives by. Yet again they prove that they are fully unafraid in their music, unafraid to be wild or out of form on one end, or to be obvious and cringingly earnest on the other end. They’re hippies for the modern day, and they aren’t afraid to show it. The range that ensues entails brilliant moments throughout the album. The standard A/F trick is to build initially energetic songs into triumphant explosions of joy and melody and screaming. “Ed is a Portal” emerges from a placid opening track with a couple vocal chants and a banjo riff. It travels through nonsensical lyrics and tributes to pot smoking to arrive at another vocal chant, a cappella, a climax of two parts, with a space in between to bake the song in violins, guitar parts, and a “It’s All Gonna Break”-like horn-build. A goofily glorious song on its own, the tune takes one last left turn into an odd coda of barbershop singing and......
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Love Is Simple | Review
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Terance Terich | Treblezine.com Holy shit. Holy motherfucking shit! I, like William Shatner before me, am now a `transformed man.' Over the past two years, Michael Gira, the head of Young God Records and a member of Angels of Light, and a small handful of music lovers in the know have been raving about Akron/Family. Up until now, I had enjoyed the Brooklyn band on a peripheral level, always on the outskirts and never quite diving head first into their music. So, what happened? Love is Simple happened, that's what. This second full-length effort hit me like a bullet in the brain-pan, squish! Although I inevitably end up liking a whole mess of music throughout the year, Akron/Family has just made a case for themselves for my absolute top pick. That's how much I absolutely adore this album. Love is Simple starts and ends with Akron/Family's homage to the Beatles' "All You Need is Love." "Love, Love, Love (everyone)" and its later reprise hearken back to the days of John Lennon's meaningful messages told in as brief and simple a package possible, and, in a way, that's what Akron/Family are trying to convey. There's even the sound of a live......