Annuals – Wet Zoo EP
The new EP from Annuals “Wet Zoo” is a interesting take on the split EP. On the record, we get three songs from Annuals and also two songs by a strange side project called Sunfold. Sunfold is actually a band side project featuring songs written by the bands lead guitars Kenny Florence and featuring a cast of characters along the way. Let us first take the new batch of songs from Annuals. The first song is “Score” that starts off as a quite and powerful acoustic ditty. Then about two minutes in it explodes to new heights with something that sounds so epic it should be the rallying song for some sort of march. Next up we have “Around Your Neck” and it shifts gears to a punchy rock song that turns into an Arcade Fire like climax. The final song from Annuals is a touching ballad called “Just Stay In.” The band has created a song of elegant beauty. The songs touching string arrangement moves along at just the right pace and never straying away from that soft tone.
Sunfold now gets two songs here to make its mark. The songs do represent a great departure from Annuals sound as they both of them or more guitar heavy and leaning toward a more tradition rock sound. “Between The Worlds” at various times his it moments but sometimes the vocal just stray to far into the ‘annoying” side. Then the next track “Watering Pill” still contains those really high falestos that just do not sit well with me at all. The Annuals songs really struck a chord with me and clearly I am not listening to the band enough. The Sunfold songs left a little to be desired but there is some potential there for a solid pop/rock base but maybe a little more Foo Fighters and less falsettos.
By John Siwicki
