Sunday, May 23rd • Doors 8pm • Show 9pm • $10 Flat • All Ages • $2 surcharge for minors • Buy Tickets
Annuals are friends. Annuals are plant enthusiasts & animal lovers. Annuals are part of a harmonious family and Annuals also happen to be a band (and quite a good one at that). Hailing from the tranquilly artistic town of Raleigh, NC, Annuals are a talented assembly of young musicians, all of whom are barely of legal drinking age and whose debut was released just short of their twentieth birthdays. And when Annuals get together, the music they create, in Annuals or otherwise, is very special indeed.
Three of Annuals’ members – Adam Baker (songwriter/vocals/every other instrument under the sun), Kenny Florence (lead guitar/backing vocals) and Mike Robinson (bass/backing vocals) – picked up instruments at a very early age and started playing music together almost ten years ago. Zack Oden (drums/guitar), Donzel Radford (drums/percussion) and Anna Spence (keyboard/piano/backing vocals) soon followed, solidifying the group’s six person line-up in 2005. And from this more-than-potent combination of players and personalities an incredible music collective was born. Frontman Baker, a gifted composer who had already amassed a body of work by age 17, is an expert at constructing beautifully layered soundscapes that morph and blossom into lush, bombastic pop anthems. In turn, Annuals’ debut full length release in 2006, Be He Me, on indie tastemaker label Ace Fu, secured the band as blog darlings right out of the gate, with critics and music lovers quick to follow. After tours with The Flaming Lips, Bloc Party and Calexico, Annuals continued to impress with their exuberant live performances, Southern charm, youthful attitude and amazingly crafted and eclectic songs. If their sound proved the limitless possibilities of their musical imaginations, their shows established them as a mad, energetic force in which members often switched instruments between and during songs. And now, Annuals are ready for more.
Their collaborative, no-holds-barred spirit goes well beyond the confines of the band. The group’s myriad of musical, artistic, and business-related endeavors within their community of immediate friends has only begun to pick up speed. They continuously record and play shows around their hometown when not on tour, and not just as Annuals either: each individual heads his or her own side projects with all of the same members, but in different musical roles, a testament to the strength of their creative union. All of these projects revolve around hometown-based record label, Terpsikhore (also partially owned by members of Annuals), allowing the Annuals collective to act as the spearhead for a much bigger, and perhaps impossibly ambitious, dream shared by the group and all of their friends to get good music out to the masses any way possible.
There have been countless records that begin with the same bombast as The Most Serene Republic’s …And The Ever Expanding Universe, but few have taken listeners down a path of such enriching, introspective discovery. Long masters at stimulating senses and stirring emotions, the Ontario-based band have never sounded this immediate and attainable.
The sonic density of their previous efforts has given way to more dynamic, engaging fare, as visceral as the most obviously cloying pop music but with a more scintillating head on its shoulders.
Hypersensitive and buoyed on by endearing melodrama in their heads, The Most Serene Republic remain a captivating force because they continue to wrestle with their existence (and ours) by conveying such tension and conflict in their extra-extraordinary music.
With its amalgam of anthemic pop, electronica, ornate classical flourishes, and yes, some not-so-obvious nods to classic R&B, this is not the document of a band ingratiating itself for broader appeal. With new drummer Adam Balsam infusing their sound with an unexpectedly swinging stomp, The Most Serene Republic sound as challenging as ever. If the goal was to get middle-aged parents to understand and appreciate ..And The Ever Expanding Universe, then it’s going to take some awfully open-minded parents. “I would love to be able to communicate with the whole world one day but I’m pretty happy with the way things are going right now,” Lenssen admits. “If our music can take care of the few people who want to discover the world in a different light or do crazy things, I’m really happy to facilitate sending our message to those people.”
ORH TweetsThe Old Rock House is located at: 1200 South 7th Street St. Louis, MO 63104 (314) 588-0505
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This will be the best show ever!