Set'em Wild Set'em Free

Chances are that, a couple of years from now, punters will look back at Akron/Family's Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free as the transitional album in the band's catalog. In 2007, lead vocalist Ryan Vanderhoof left after recording the adventurous Love Is Simple, leaving the group a trio. Seemingly undaunted, Seth Olinsky, Miles Seaton, and Dana Janssen recruited engineer and co-producer Chris Koltay, and enlisted nine other musicians to create the most far-reaching, margin-breaking set of the band's career to date. Where Love Is Simple seemed -- and was for the time -- groundbreaking, Akron/Family were continuing to split themselves off from the whole post-psychedelic free folk underground and pursue something they would feel comfortable expanding toward. One song might feature acoustic balladry while another would be a full-on rock fest, while another would be a tribal workout and another might have some post-prog overtones. On Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free, the ideas are even less conceptual but more satisfying and more focused in songwriting and production. First, there's the great cover nod to Sly's There's a Riot Goin' On, though on this American flag the stitches are frayed and the field of stars has been blurred into something like a weather map representing a tropical storm. It reflects mightily what's in the grooves. Here many ideas are not only considered but fully attempted -- often in the same track. Take for instance "Everyone Is Guilty," the cut that opens the set. There are no less than six tempo changes, though it opens with a slippery funky backbeat, Afro-beat percussion, and a slinky yet propulsive bassline before entering a hooky, Beatlesque rock chorus, layering in strings, taut snare, and kick drum, and then chanting above hard rock riffs, a pop bridge, and prog rock exercises in arpeggiatic crescendo. It may sound like a mess, but it's tight as a fist hammering on musical genres and cracking them open wide.