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Seth Olinsky, Akron/Family singer and guitarist, believes the digital music revolution has not only changed how young people purchase and listen to music, but also what they listen to.

"Music is being consumed in totally different ways nowadays," Olinsky says. "It's not like you go to the CD store now and go to the rock section if you're a rock fan or the hip-hop section if you're a hip-hop fan.

"Now, your buddy gives you 15 brand-new albums on a USB drive, then you go and download some stuff on the Internet, and you're swimming in a sea of music."

This sea of music could also be applied to the sound of Akron/Family. Composed of drummer Dana Janssen, bassist Miles Seaton and Olinsky, the genre-defiant trio crosses musical categories and dabbles in various tempos and moods.

"Truly, I think we're in the age of nongenre," Olinsky says. "I feel like we kind of leave it open to ourselves to explore whatever, whether it's just putting this song that has kind of an R&B flavor or I've been thinking of Woody Guthrie or we're inspired by the Boredoms or whatever at the time.

"We kind of just absorb everything around us and kind of spit it back out in some weird fashion."

So it makes sense that Akron/Family has titled its fourth and newest full-length album "Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free." Starting with the funky, upbeat number "Everyone Is Guilty," the album veers into the playful musical waters of "River," the somber, synth-heavy melodies of "Many Ghosts" and the manic-depressive anthem of "They Will Appear" before concluding with the piano and chorus hymn "Last Year."

"I think in some ways it's just a natural way that we arrange things," Olinsky says. "We just tend to juxtapose things and juxtapose ideas and have the hyper-contrast kind of bring out the frantic quality of the ideas."

Akron/Family has never been a group to adhere to a certain genre or idea within the span of an album, but Olinksy says the newest album had an especially chaotic quality because of the difficult transitions they made when the album was produced.

"We were going through a big change," Olinsky says. "One of our guys (guitarist Ryan Vanderhoof) left the band; we left our older record label (Young God Records). And we were kind of in this time of change, so there was just sort of this tumultuous energy, this energy of trying new ideas and this energy of re-creation."

Most established musical acts would either disband or hire a replacement musician after the departure of a member, but Olinsky, drummer Dana Janssen and bassist Miles Seaton made the difficult choice of turning their four-piece group into a trio.

"We really committed a lot of time and rehearsal and touring into really being a four-piece," Olinsky says. "So as adaptable as I kind of wished we were, when we became a three-piece, we could still play everything, but it really felt like the sound was uneven, so we had to start from ground level, and we just had to work on the sound of our instruments."

Part of the adjustment included Olinsky playing guitar with two amplifiers instead of one and Janssen using a larger bass drum.

"And the whole thing was really a long process," Olinsky says. "I feel like we're playing better now than we ever had played before as a four-piece and more powerfully."

Currently, the band is about to embark on tour (with a stop in Greensboro), as well as create songs for a new album. Olinsky hopes that now that the band is more accustomed to playing as a three-piece, its new record will be less experimental and more fleshed out.

"With 'Set 'Em Wild' we were kind of breaking down barriers and creating this foundation," he says. "And now we get to build on that which is pretty significant."

Contact Joe Scott at movieshowjoe@gmail.com