If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed Young God put this split together by no more conscious a process than going down their roster alphabetically. How else to explain casting freaky folkies Akron/Family and straight laced Angels of Light as record mates? The combination sounds incongruous, both in concept and on my stereo.

I do know better, though: it’s Gira’s doing. This record really is the Michael Gira show, to the extent that you could legitimately replace every proper noun in the preceding paragraph with “Michael Gira” and come away with a good idea of what’s going you’re going to hear on this record. Try it: Young God? Gira’s record label, originally intended to release his Swans material. Angels of Light? Gira himself. Akron/Family? Does not actually contain Gira, but amenable to his latter-day acoustipsych idiom just the same.

“Acoustipsych?” Yikes, but I’m afraid so. Akron/Family would be all too easy to label with the alliterative descriptor that’s garnered their labelmate Devendra Banhart so much love. It’s really not them, though. Their true asset is the band’s ability to back up their freakiness with full and interesting arrangements. In truth, the band’s contribution to this split sounds more like Animal Collective’s recent Feels than Rejoicing in the Hands. This reviewer notices with pleasure that it seems to be working for them.

Akron/Family’s half of the disc begins in “Awake” with a clean guitar study that eventually sprouts Abbey Road-esque vocal harmonies. These give way the first of a few bursts of pure, guitar-oriented freakout, which offset “Moment’s” reeling melody. Honestly, the reverberating cries and floor tom percussion of “Myth” invokes so much Animal Collective that I had to dig out Feels again to rule out intellectual property infringement – and that’s not a bad thing.

The final track on Akron/Family’s side of the split, “Raising the Sparks,” is a standout. High-register guitar flourishes announce that the band’s in an epic mood, while the classically psychedelic vocal line could have come right out of Nuggets. Snare-heavy drums push the song into what could and should be backwards guitars, before a Dionysian a cappella breakdown reminds us that this is 2005 and Young God, after all. “A sun that will sink, like the thousands of dreams, that you’ve wakened to never remember,” indeed – before hearing this song, I never had an opportunity to discover how awkward and uninspiring my air sitar was. Through repeated listenings, though, I believe I can correct that.

…Aaaaaaaand, country.

If your idea of Swans doesn’t stray from their archetypical industrial sound, you might not have seen Angels of Light coming. Even if you caught Swans’ Burning World and later, more eclectic releases, you could be forgiven for missing the clues that prefigured Gira’s current musical mood. Since 1999, Angels of Light has been releasing steady southern-inflected ballads that almost completely ignore its chief member’s deafening back pages. Here, Gira’s laconic baritone recalls more Leonard Cohen than his own erstwhile death-mumble. The music’s changed, too – in fact, the man’s entire musical career may usefully be read as a steady progression toward the sort of sensible, competent production values that only come from maturity.

Maturity, that is, and seemingly running out of things to say. Can anyone really justify that Dylan cover? Angels of Light’s portion of the record starts of with a competently-produced take on “I Pity the Poor Immigrant.” Now, it has been this reviewer’s experience that Mr. Gira does not execute the best possible covers. Readers may have encountered Swans’ “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” a straightforward cover that does little to differentiate itself from the glut of Joy Division tributes recorded since. Angels of Light’s opener here suffers from the same sonic ennui, but adds a regrettably over-sung vocal. This reviewer himself did not overcome the first warble.

“The Provider” is a competently-produced track that pairs the expected acoustic guitar strum with the plink of a trembling prepared electric. As soon as the song realizes we’re paying attention, though, it slinks embarrassedly back to an unmemorable, if intense, full band arrangement. Throughout the restrained effects-box cadenza, I hear Sonic Youth sitting down.

“For Hope” slips by, unnoticed. “Mother/Father” should be so lucky. The sleeve claims that this version is “entirely different in form/arrangement” from that which appeared on Swans’ Great Destroyer ten years prior. And it is, in the same way that the Scarface that was broadcast on network TV is entirely different in form and arrangement from the Scarface that was good. Finally, “Come for My Woman” is a fine choice for a closer, in that I was happy when it ended.

It must be said, though – all three tracks are competently, maturely, and stultifyingly produced.

Reviewed by Dan Ray