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On their newest album, Love Is Simple, Akron / Family succeeds because it is unafraid of failure. They lack pretension and this allows their ideas to pour forth without filtering them through preconceptions of what might be cool or new. As such, on this album you will find some of the most affecting songs of the year. However, this lack of filtering also allows some less inspiring moments to make it onto the album, but never are these diversions so bad, nor are they dwelled upon long enough to weigh down the buoyant ebullience of this overall spectacular album.

Freak-folk fans of bands such as Animal Collective will find plenty to love here. “New Ceremonial For Moms” slowly grows to a conflagration of tribal drums and a chorus of chants before pulling back to glowing embers of moaning voices echoing the chaos that preceded it. It’s not all slow tribal builds here though. “I’ve Got Some Friends” clocks in at just over 3 minutes. But in those three short minutes Akron / Family play a Zappa-esque leapfrog hopping onto enough brilliant pop moments to fill a whole side of vinyl of most bands’ releases.

On “There’s So Many Colors” [sic] Akron / Family take their time unfolding what becomes a great 60’s folk tune before taking the song skyward for it’s finale. “Ed Is a Portal” takes a similar journey, but here is an example of where Akron / Family’s willingness to follow its bliss wherever it should take them leads them along some pedestrian, rather than stratospheric paths. When this song makes the quick turn towards electronica what seems initially exciting never really pays off, and we’re left with a cute but uninventive exercise in drum machinery. The sin is immediately forgiven, however, by the lackadaisical yet inspiring “Don’t Be Afraid”. Here we get a taste of one of Akron / Family’s most endearing dichotomies, the beauty of morbidity. As they sing “Don’t be afraid / You’re already dead” you find yourself believing them. Once death has come, what’s left to fear? I mean, if you’re hearing music as good as this you’re surely in heaven. This dichotomy is also well represented in the cover art, a human heart’s vasculature rendered by the plastination process of Gunther van Hagens. Here we see the blood vessels of the heart in gory detail, but when it is contrasted with the blank white background its gossamer beauty outshines the gruesome reality.

The rest of the album continues along this serpentine path through musical genres, and it would be a lot of fun for a music geek like me to go on playing spot the influences for another 1000 words. But I wont, for in the end it’s all unclassifiable as anything other than Akron / Family.

By being unafraid to bear their hearts fully Akron / Family risks occasionally showing us their bad side. But this also allows us to be privy to their unbridled beauty. Without appreciating the darker side of things one can not fully marvel at the wonder of the world. Akron / Family embraces this, and on Love Is Simple they bring us along for a marvelous ride, and one of 2007’s best albums to date.

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