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Love Is Simple | Review
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Justin Scott | Georgetown Voiceexciting and livelyAkron/Family burst onto the music scene in 2005 with their promising self-titled debut and a fantastic split EP with the Angels of Light. With 2006’s Meek Warrior, however, they seemed to run out of energy even as they piled on the ideas. Thankfully, Love is Simple is exciting and lively, and its fusion of straightforward rock, tribal freak-outs and dense soundscapes makes it Akron/Family’s best release yet. Love is Simple isn’t a concept album per se, but it has a consistent feel and theme—love—that does wonders for its effectiveness. Among the shorter songs, “Don’t Be Afraid, You’re Already Dead” and “Phenomena” are standouts. Both exercise restraint and emphasize melody until their fantastic Neil Young-esque guitar climaxes. Of the longer songs, “Ed Is A Portal” and “There’s So Many Colors” are noteworthy. Both contain some of Akron/Family’s best tribal freak outs, perhaps best described as a mixture of campfire harmonies and free jazz via bizarre vocal chants, handclaps and sparse acoustic guitars.Aside from one unnecessary brief drum-machine passage at the end of “Ed Is A Portal,” the arrangements are fresh and organic in a way most releases today are not. And like Young’s albums Tonight’s the......
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Love Is Simple | Review
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Justin Scott | Georgetown Voice its fusion of straightforward rock, tribal freak-outs and dense soundscapes makes it Akron/Family’s best release yetAkron/Family burst onto the music scene in 2005 with their promising self-titled debut and a fantastic split EP with the Angels of Light. With 2006’s Meek Warrior, however, they seemed to run out of energy even as they piled on the ideas. Thankfully, Love is Simple is exciting and lively, and its fusion of straightforward rock, tribal freak-outs and dense soundscapes makes it Akron/Family’s best release yet. Love is Simple isn’t a concept album per se, but it has a consistent feel and theme—love—that does wonders for its effectiveness. Among the shorter songs, “Don’t Be Afraid, You’re Already Dead” and “Phenomena” are standouts. Both exercise restraint and emphasize melody until their fantastic Neil Young-esque guitar climaxes. Of the longer songs, “Ed Is A Portal” and “There’s So Many Colors” are noteworthy. Both contain some of Akron/Family’s best tribal freak outs, perhaps best described as a mixture of campfire harmonies and free jazz via bizarre vocal chants, handclaps and sparse acoustic guitars. Aside from one unnecessary brief drum-machine passage at the end of “Ed Is A Portal,” the arrangements are fresh and organic......
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Love Is Simple | Review
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Eric Harvey | Pitchforkmedia.comAn absurd and occasionally awkward celebration of humanity, love, and the natural worldSince their inception, Akron/Family have seemed to enjoy playing in the shadows, always allowing some personality or characteristic apart from themselves to dominate center stage. As the backing band for Angels of Light, that personality is former Swans frontman Michael Gira; on their own records, it's a variation of folk music and electronics. But Love Is Simple, their latest release on Gira's Young God label, seems designed to change that. An absurd and occasionally awkward celebration of humanity, love, and the natural world, Love Is Simple is Akron/Family's bold, unvarnished paean to discovering god within nature, through a fusion of drum-circle bliss, religious signifiers, and classic rock. The best introduction to this new style comes four tracks into the record, with the joyous "I've Got Some Friends". Initially evoking the Mothers of Invention's We're Only in It for the Money with its unhinged lo-fi folk-rock opening, the song soon segues into a hillbilly country greeting that reflects the album's sunny disposition: "I've got some friends that you should meet/ But don't go see 'em if you are shy/ 'Cause they are always in embrace beyond propriety."......
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Love Is Simple | Review
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Andrew Boe | Usounds.com Their particular musical style is difficult to pigeonhole, which is refreshingIt is a bit challenging to introduce Akron/Family to those who may not be familiar with them. The group consists of four young men who mainly write a strange blend of folk-rock that most people will instantly lump into this trendy new category termed ‘freak folk.’ They are not from Akron, OH, and as far as one can tell, they have nothing to do with the town. Instead, they hail from various small towns in the US and have settled in New York City. Their new CD and 2xLP is their third full length album entitled Love is Simple, and it is a continuation of what we have seen and heard from the group on their previous releases. Akron/Family are an intriguing, yet bizarre group. Their particular musical style is difficult to pigeonhole, which is refreshing. The four group members often harmonize together, singing these big sing-along choruses. Lyrically, they walk a line between hippie ideology and existential nihilism. Their sound is like a blend of sixties and seventies folk and rock, but they are also decidedly modern. You would have to hear them to understand where......
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Love Is Simple | Review
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Zachary Herrmann | Diamondback "Have you noticed everyone around here is crazy?"During the opening seconds of the fourth song on Akron/Family's latest album, a voice interrupts the frantic picking and singing to pose the question, "Have you noticed everyone around here is crazy?" Crazy definitely permeates throughout Love Is Simple, Akron/Family's second full album (third album overall if you count the mini-album, Meek Warrior). The range of sounds and ideas represents a true collective genius within the band - a genius which occasionally spins out of control - and while love may be simple, the Akron/Family's new album certainly is not. The album lives and breathes in the sort of three-dimensional space few bands can manage to achieve in the age of digital recording. Though Akron/Family thrives mostly on its renowned stage reputation, there is just as much to praise in the group's towering studio presence. Working with producer Andrew Weiss (Ween) for the first time, Akron/Family has delivered one of the year's most fascinating efforts. Love Is Simple probes the less-traveled fringes of stereo sound, seeking out sonic bliss somewhere across the great divide - a grand melding of organic and synthesized music in a tour de force of love-thy-neighbor-flavored communal rock. The......