Annuals

Such Fun (Canvasback)

Like contemporaries Yeasayer and Gang Gang Dance, Annuals suffer from ADD. The North Carolina-based sextet takes a patchwork approach to indie rock, warping snippets of stadium guitar, syncopated beats, and ornate string arrangements through a jaded pop prism, all with varying degrees of success. While the band clearly hasn’t lost a wink of the spastic, youthful exuberance that epitomized its 2006 debut, Be He Me, the genre hopscotch on Such Fun feels more calculated, at times recalling a hybrid of Islands’ off-kilter prog and Morning View-era Incubus, particularly opener “Confessor.” Occasionally the pieces coalesce, such as the modern waltz “Wake” and “Springtime,” which begins as a vernal piano ballad before morphing into a jubilant mess of choral voices, but the misfires are plentiful (“Down the Mountain,” “Hair Don’t Grow”). Such Fun in too small doses. (4pm, Stage 1.)

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This article appears in November 7 • 2008.

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