Like Parliament or Red Krayola before them, Akron/Family's career path is so varied and unexpected it's silly to expect their albums to represent growth or progression. So on a superficial level the main differences between Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free and Akron's previous work is the departure of Ryan Vanderhoof (who left after recording Love Is Simple) and that they're now releasing those strained analogies on Dead Oceans instead of Michael Gira's Young God.
Anybody worried that it was Gira's skeletal hand that was keeping the Family weird can rest easy. Opener "Everyone Is Guilty" skips groove in favor of skronk, employing a hard, scat-worthy verse vocal and billowing, aggressive guitar breaks. The song ends with a small, creeping symphony-- horns, strings, and a flute carrying the song to a peaceable conclusion. It's a strident opener, one that signals Set ‘Em Wild will trend darker than 2007's excellent Love Is Simple. Remaining members Seth Olinsky, Miles Seaton, and Dana Janssen usually skew toward the abstract lyrically, making it difficult to say Set 'Em is "about" anything, but the album's final line-- "Last year was a hard year/ For such a long time/ This year's gonna be ours"-- and title point toward an airing of grievances. Either way, the vibe doesn't seem to be anger so much as perseverance, especially during the album's balmy, tempered middle.
During that middle section, Set ‘Em Wild balances the strangeness of tracks like "Everyone Is Guilty" with worthy but, you know, normal art-rock. "River" doesn't necessarily follow standard rock patterns, but the way its instruments interact-- pattering toms enter with robust guitar licks, a tempered horn solo on the bridge-- is decidedly regular. The title track's country-pastoral lope or "Many Ghosts"' eerie balladry are slight tweaks on formulas. Cryptic, pretty statements are floated: "You are no longer river to me... You are no longer docile stream." For all of their idiosyncrasies and Zeus-ian chest baring, the differences between Akron and everyrocker troupes like Arcade Fire or Broken Social Scene aren't always so large.
This isn't a slight (though the mewling "The Alps & Their Orange Evergreen" is the closest the band has ever come to unplugged alterna-rock), especially because Akron use their most traditional moments as launching pads for their freak. What other reason to sequence the album's two oddest tracks-- the crashing clay guitars of "MBF" and the beefy "They Will Appear"-- after the album's comparatively placid middle third? Those songs recall the woolly prog-epics the band explored on 2006's Meek Warrior; here, though, they feel welcomingly disruptive.
The band's now-routine gospel-like chanting grows tiresome by album end (they miss Vanderhoof's vocals), and, as was expected, Set ‘Em Wild doesn't necessarily expand the band's sound so much as further splinter their interest. Brief ear-piquing moments-- the white noise fadeout of "Sun Will Shine (Warmth of the Sunship Version)" is followed by a boozy horn section playing "Auld Lang Syne", but at this point in the band's development even that doesn't shock. Celebratory standards, talk of a "geese nation," tie-dyed American flags...despite the changes this is still the same Family.
