Pitchfork

Photo by Autumn de Wilde

On Wet Zoo, the first release we've heard from this North Carolinian lot for quite some time, Annuals will be splitting the EP with... Annuals?! How in the heck does that work?

Easier than you'd think. The Wet Zoo EP features a trio of all-new contributions from Annuals and a pair from a band called Sunfold. Thing is, Sunfold is Annuals, with one fairly major difference: instead of Annuals main man Adam Baker taking the reigns, the Sunfold recordings are spearheaded by Annuals lead guitarist Kenny Florence. Apart from that distinction, it's the very same band, with a very different name, with what we're told is a "very different, more guitar-heavy" sound, on the very same split EP.

Got that? It took three of us all afternoon to write that paragraph.

Wet Zoo, with its five frolicsome tunes of frontman-switcheroo, is due April 1 on Ace Fu and Sony imprint Canvasback Music. The band, meanwhile, are due in Raleigh tonight for a gig, to be followed a month later by another North Carolina gig, and followed a month after that by Coachella. An Annuals full-length is in the works for 2008, and more dates are on the way from both bands. Though, for their sake, hopefully not at the same time.

Wet Zoo:

01 Annuals: "Sore"
02 Annuals: "Around Your Neck"
03 Annuals: "Just Stay In"
04 Sunfold: "Between the Worlds"
05 Sunfold: "Watering Pail"

Annuals (we think):

02-29 Raleigh, NC - The Brewery
03-27 Boone, NC - Appalachian State University
04-27 Indio, CA - Coachella