Akron/Family

Look, it’s a given that these four guys are fun-loving, great people. But fun, great people don’t always carry the day. Look at Billy Corgan’s career arc.

Well, anyway, Akron/Family’s latest goes by the name Love Is Simple. It’s a drive-in lovefest, sometimes with group shouting, other times howling, and always with an armada of drums and harmonies. Each listen makes me think of a most hirsute church choir holding hands and swaying for the joy of it all. They’re celebrating a thing called love, or God, or nothing, all at the same time.

A friend of mine who doubles as a music snob has passed this record off as “borderline-cheesy hippie drum circle.” Sometimes I’m inclined to agree. First track “Love, Love, Love (Everyone)” and its closing reprisal certainly seem theses for such crit. The title is all you need to know. (“All you need is love”? What?) But then tender moments like “Don’t Be Afraid, You’re Already Dead” and “Crickets” take over. This is where your cold-as-ice heart begins to melt.

“Don’t Be Afraid” seems a proactive rebuff to the snobs and critics alike who would gnash their teeth at this record: “Don’t be afraid, it’s only love.” And then it follows that such types can go screw themselves: “Don’t be afraid, you’re already dead.” At least that’s one interpretation. Don’t try to get too far in dissecting the message, though; as the group itself posits, “No point exists.” Elsewhere, “Crickets” might as well be part deux of the band’s previous “I’ll Be On The Water.” It has the same tranquil ache and harmonies, bringing to mind Simon & Garfunkel (times two). Unfortunately, there’s also “Ed Is A Portal,” which is well and good until descending near the end into dated electronic reggae. Think 311 circa 1997. Think ugh.

“Phenomena” employs some subtly hilarious wordplay: “Some think rice is white/ Others think it is brown” is rehashed with “Christ” subbed for “rice.” The track is straight-up 70s rock but for these lyrical pockets – well, 70s rock if the Beatles had made it that far – and it’s one of a few gems to harvest amidst all this rough.

“Lake Song/New Ceremonial Music For Moms” inserts some some lah-lahs straight out of a Sufjan Stevens track. (The title might as well be Suf’s, too.) This and three other songs on the album all hover around 7.5 minutes or longer, and thus they have three (or maybe six) movements each. It’s a testament to the band’s live show, which has apparently sometimes consisted of maybe two songs, each 40 minutes long with extended jams. If anything, this record will make you crave this foursome’s ballyhooed concert experience. Hearing is believing is seeing, right? It often feels here that their singing, rocking, and overall loving has been constrained in being pressed to disc.

All in all, Love Is Simple is at times glorious and occasionally just strange. More often than not, it’s the former. Some will write the Akrons off as lucky losers in this post-Phish age, but that’s unfair. (And probably gives Phish too much credit.) So what if this disc could at times be declared a train wreck? You like the ride, and you know a lot of people would cry forever if these merchants of love even went out like that.

No related posts.

blog comments powered by Disqus