Going to an Akron/Family show is like attending a hipster tent revival, so it’s fitting that the band’s sixth album is full of psychedelic hymns for its flannel-clad brethren. Mixing folk-y melodies with strange rhythms and switching time signatures and tempos constantly, the band has fully realized its signature genre on Sub Verses: prog folk. Expansive opener “No Room” is a primal waltz with a grinding, repetitive drumbeat and soaring, chant-like vocals. “Holy Boredom” is a hardcore psych freak-out that starts out sounding like an alien transmission before morphing into a tribal dance jam. Even when the band is tapping into its Americana influences, as on the shaker-punctuated “Until the Morning,” an ominous synth pulses underneath, lending everything a slightly more experimental air. It’s hard to imagine a record that successfully draws inspiration from so many disparate genres—metal, country, African drum circle beats, to name a few—but you’ll be shouting along in no time.
By Eliza C. Thompson
This review appears in the Apr/May 2013 issue of BUST Magazine with cover girl Grimes. Subscribe now.
