Annuals, an indie-pop band from North Carolina, released their latest album Oct. 7 and ironically named it Such Fun. Why ironic, you ask? Well, to put it bluntly, Such Fun is not all that fun.
When Annuals released their debut album, Be He Me, in 2006, I was in love with how entertaining they were. Every song had some sort of surprise in it, like the tempo shift in “Brother” or the tribal chanting in “Dry Clothes.” Such Fun took these little surprises and exchanged them for a more predictable, watered-down sound, not to mention some (at times) fantastically emo lyrics.
This is not to say, however, that Annuals have destroyed everything that was once fair and good in one fell swoop. In fact, most of the tracks contain some bit of Be He Me brilliance. The feel of the album is one of evolution, as shown by the constant stylistic changes throughout the album that downplay aspects of the band’s previous work. Unfortunately, only a handful of these departures actually seem fresh and interesting.
“Confessor” kicks the album off with a mediocre vocal arrangement and instrumentation that would seem typical for bands like Mae or The Starting Line. Regardless of whether this sounds like a good or bad thing (that depends on personal taste), the issue remains that this song does not sound original. The only authentically Annuals-sounding part of the entire song is when Adam Baker wails “I confess” in the chorus; this lasts about two seconds.
Next comes “Hot Night Hounds,” which starts as a simple piano ballad yet ends up a powerfully awesome post-rock song by the end, making it arguably the strongest track on the album. This song incorporates one of the few stylistic departures from the Be He Me sound that actually works.
“Springtime” starts off much like “Hot Night Hounds,” before falling flat when the song opts to introduce emo lyrics like “I never meant you harm / when I laid you down” and incessant “la la las.” The track ends with some ambient noise, including a voice saying “that was good,” to which I always think in reply, “No it wasn’t.”
Following “Springtime” is one of the most interesting songs I have heard all year; “Down the Mountain” starts with some background farm sounds and ends sounding like a pop-punk and alt-country mash-up. Somehow, this seemingly absurd premise for a song comes off as quite catchy and is the only track that seems to match the “fun” aspect of the album title.
With the exception of the last track, the rest of the album suffers like “Confessor” and “Springtime” in the sense that they lack the ability to separate themselves from songs that sound similar. For example, “Talking” sounds like it could be a Coheed and Cambria B-side, while “Hardwood Floor” and “The Tape” sound like they could be on The Format’s next album.
“Wake,” the last track on Such Fun, ends the torrent of mediocrity by combining guitars, violins and whistling into a hauntingly beautiful conclusion to an album that lost its way. This final track competes with “Hot Night Hounds” for the album’s strongest song, and both show some great potential for future Annuals releases despite the overall lackluster outcome of Such Fun.
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