Dorks And Losers

It’s amaz­ing how the band man­ages to cre­ate such an encom­pass­ing and expan­sive EP of just five tracks, yet Sweet Sis­ter feels much more mean­ing­ful than whole double-disc albums or even entire artist cat­a­logs. Exag­ger­a­tion, sure, but for as cool a band as Annu­als that is being modest.

Toy Tug­boats is the cul­mi­na­tion of years of writ­ing and com­pos­ing over the course of sev­eral years dur­ing tour trav­el­ing and basi­cally with any free sec­ond the musi­cians had. The album’s con­sis­tency is remark­able. Never flashy and never overt, Sun­fold gives Annu­als a run for their money.

If North Car­olina had any hope of a prayer of being rec­og­nized as a breed­ing ground for good indie bands, then the Annu­als might be the sign that Tar Heel res­i­dents were wait­ing for.