BIOGRAPHY - SUCH FUN.
Raleigh, North Carolina-based six-piece Annuals released their sophomore album, Such Fun, on October 7th, 2008 on Canvasback Music. The collection was co-produced by Annuals frontman Adam Baker and producer Jacquire King (Modest Mouse, Tom Waits), who also produced the band's recently released Wet Zoo EP. Recorded throughout North Carolina, Such Fun is an album so varied and exciting, it certainly belies the years of its young creator and his musical cohorts.
Annuals have had an incredible ride since their acclaimed debut album, Be He Me, came out only two short years ago. Released when the band members -Adam Baker (songwriter/vocals), Kenny Florence (lead guitar/backing vocals), Mike Robinson (bass/backing vocals), Anna Spence (keyboard/piano/backing vocals), Zack Oden (drums/guitar) and Donzel Radford (drums/percussion) -- were all around the age of nineteen, the album spread like a wildfire around the globe. Critics (everyone from Rolling Stone to the New York Times to the NME) and fans alike fell instantly for the young band's expansive, energetic sound, igniting a frenzy amongst bloggers that has shown no signs of slowing down. Tours with Bloc Party, The Flaming Lips and an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien ensued, but in the pockets of downtime, Annuals secretly began to work on their newest creation, Such Fun. From song fragments that Adam had been carrying around for years in his head to compositions written throughout the recording process, Such Fun only took a more pronounced shape over the last year. Even in its initial stages, the songs were markedly different from their predecessors, revealing the ways in which Adam's incredible songwriting had grown considerably in a short period of time. His influences - Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Paul Simon - all melted together with his own sharply-honed melodic sensibilities as he wrote, depicting themes of loneliness, loss, and the organic world. The result is a record that is fully, electrifyingly alive, maintaining the breadth of Annuals' scope while taking their sound in brilliant new directions. To say the record is, of course, "such fun" would be a bit silly, but that is the exact wording for the dynamic compositions on this album: songs this great inspire the desire to hear them over and over again...
Such Fun embraces a vast landscape of musical richness, combining Adam's accomplished songcraft with an instrumental palate that is even more blindingly colorful than their previous work. Straddling the line between epic post-rock, pop-rock guitar crunch, woozy country swings and lovely orchestral ballads, Such Fun is revelatory in its depth. Opener "Confessor" packs a killer, harmony-filled chorus layered with sweeping strings and keyboard droplets before the album moves into the head-nod mediation of "Hot Night Hounds," the first song written for this record. "Down the Mountain" marries a drum-and-fiddle-filled jaunt with dancing polyrhythmic electric guitars, while "Always Do" is a smoldering swoon, dripping with slide guitar and a bursting crescendo chorus. Closing track "Wake" blossoms with bold, cinematic strings and promises of new beginnings, the perfect uplifting end to a perfectly crafted album that sees Annuals reaching to the farthest parts of their musical imaginations and coming back with something incredible.
