Everything Akron/Family does is patently fascinating, wildly evocative and compellingly mysterious. The Brooklyn, N.Y., collective — with no connection to the northern Ohio city or each other as indicated by their name — assembled more than a decade ago and quickly became a central element of the Williamsburg scene.
A/F’s latest, the just-released Sub Verses, is a bit more conventional, but only measured against the band’s own beautifully bizarre standards; melodic, noisy, atonal, thunderous, pastoral, visceral, joyous and moody, Sub Verses is the sound of Polyphonic Spree as steered by a love of Frank Zappa, Roky Erickson and Tortoise. Expect anything, expect everything; that’s what Akron/Family is prepared to give you.
Akron/Family plays Wednesday, April 17 at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine with M. Geddes Gengras. motrpub.com.
This article appears in Apr 17-23, 2013.