Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Annuals - Be He Me | Shows

Stop the presses. I actually like a Pitchfork Review.

For a band that I have associated with religious experiences, and one praised by the bloggers, you'd expect Pitchfork to hate Annuals. Even if they did fawn over "Brother," time has passed, and everyone is a buzz. And with a 7.8 review, they don't exactly love them, but thank god it's actually an insightful review this time around. They actually talked about the music in a way that I actually understood. Imagine that!

Refreshingly unconcerned with perpetuating cool, Annuals' attack is fundamentally escapist: Baker seems to prefer living inside his ever-aburst music, and listeners will be lured by the world it creates, a place of freakishly sustainable energy fluctuations where surprises would be routine, naps would raise heart rates, and sighs would result from exhilaration rather than exhaustion. Diehard residents of actuality might even find the Annuals' abstract plane inaccessible, or preferable at a distance....

"Carry Around" invokes exactly-- exactly-- the futuristic tropicalia that Beck was supposed to be perfecting by now. The disco-waltz "Complete or Completing" submerges into a Steely Dan tide, then locks into a chant-groove that is triumphantly resumed on album closer "Sway", which dips the last few years of indie-rock's most-soiled dishes into a Ladysmith Black Mambazo rinse.

Read the whole thing here.

The band is playing yet another show in New York, and yet another chance for me to totally geek out. The rest of the tour dates are below.

11/15 Cambridge TT the Bear's w/ Evangelicals
11/16 NYC Mercury Lounge
11/18 Dublin Vicar St. w/ the Flaming Lips
11/19 Dublin Vicar St. w/ the Flaming Lips
11/21 London White Heat @ Madam Jo Jo's
11/23 Kings Cross, London Water Rats Theatre
11/24 London Stylish Riot @ The Barfly
11/25 London Frog @ The Mean Fiddler
12/2 Tucson Rialto Theater w/ Calexico
12/3 Albuquerque Launchpad w/ Calexico
12/4 Flagstaff Orpheum Theater w/ Calexico
12/5 Tempe The Clubhouse w/ Calexico
12/6 Los Angeles Spaceland w/ Tralala and Jim Noir
12/7 San Francisco Bottom of the Hill w/ Goblin Cock and Pleeseasaur
12/9 Seattle Neumo's w/ Juno and Junior Boys

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