Search - Akron, Family & Angels of Light :: Akron/Family & Angels of Light

Darn Good/Waiting For More

D. Cross | Hollywood, CA USA | 11/24/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"So, a quickie album of sorts, split between Akron/Family and Akron/Family playing M Gira's backing band. The first 7 songs are from the Akrons and they surprised me. I'd already heard their debut album and wasn't blown away by it. I thought they were decent, but nothing truly spectacular for the genre they're in. But here, the sounds are much broader in scope.

"Raising the Sparks," for one, is just craziness. It starts off with a 60's/classic rock riff. About 1/3 of the way through, the song shifts into a looney, shouted melody that is incessant, despite its oddity. The last 1/3 of the song shifts to something else entirely, the kind of sweet, but off-kilter stuff one could've imagined would come from Brian Wilson.

With Gira's voice, a different mood takes hold. The cover of Dylan's "I Pity the Poor Immigrant" is very good and the performance of it very straight-forward. The version of Swans' "Mother/Father" is a totally different take on the song, originally sung by Jarboe, here it is Gira taking the lead with Akron/Family sounding like a choir of drunkards in Hell. Overall, nothing strikingly new or different for Gira, but as always, the quality is very high, the songs and performance very good. If you already like AoL, this will not disappoint.

If you're a fan of this stuff, check out these other bands: Woven Hand, Palodine and Strange Rebel Frequency."

Always good

alexander laurence | Los Angeles, CA | 01/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A few years ago Michael Gira did some folk music. Later he released some records by Devendra Banhart. Now he has a band of four Devendras. It is pretty interesting results. "Awake" is almost Beatlesque. That goes into the crazy Captain Beefheart jazz of "Moment." Some of the Akron stuff is folk music and some is psychedelic rock. "Raising The Sparks" is much like some cool Prog Rock. Gira covers a Dylan song "I Pity The Poor Immigrant." The song "The Provider" reminds me the most of The Swans. "One For Hope" is a really lovely sounding song. "Mother/Father" is really a new version of an old Swans songs. Gira makes it sound very tribal. "Come For My Woman" sounds like it could be in a Sergio Leone film. Gira has done a lot of recent interesting music in the past three years. Hopefully this is not overlooked."