Akron/Family – Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free

If you were led to the Akron/Family by one song, you might be perplexed. One spin of the album opener “Everyone is Guilty” would lead you to expect a crazily percussive modern indie-psyche band who’d spent an awful lot of time rifling through ‘70s LPs. A spin of “The Alps & Their Orange Evergreen,” however, might lead you to expect the next Fleet Foxes. The Akron/Family play both sides, and explore both at length on their superb new release. It all holds together surprisinglywell, considering it moves from Grateful Deadish folk rock (title track) to oddly fitting horns and woodwinds (“Gravelly Mountains of the Moon”) and full-on noisy guitar blasts (“MBF”). If the material wasn’t so good, it might be confounding.