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Annuals and Jessica Lea Mayfield @ the Troubadour, 2/19/09
If recently you have had the misfortune of having your heart ripped out and stomped on the floor into little bitty pieces by someone you love, boy have I got an album for you. The young songwriter, Jessica Lea Mayfield and her band played at the Troubadour on Thursday, and man alive, does she ever feel your pain. In a dark purple dress, that matched the vibe of her music, Ms. Mayfield launched into her catalog of woe. False lovers, bad breakups, and the discombobulation one feels when emerging from a long relationship are all covered by Ms. Mayfield in all their gory details. This is an album to listen to when your desolate in your room, watching the rain pour down your window, smoking your fifteenth cigarette, and wondering what the fuck happened. You don't even have to know the lyrics. Ms. Mayfield's mumbling alto is perfect for moaning and holding your head. No enunciation necessary.
However, if your heart is currently whole and you're in a happy place in your life, Jessica Lea Mayfield is not for you. The crowd at the Troubadour on Thursday was clearly in the later state of mind and gave Ms. Mayfield a lukewarm reception. No matter what her band did, it was greeted with a lackluster response. To be fair, her band was fantastic. At one point the bassist threw himself on the ground frantically plucking at his stand up bass that seemed to be crushing him. The lead guitarist was equally masterful. Dressed sharply in a suit with a slightly confusing bandanna wrapped around his head, this young man let his guitar sing a mournful duet with Mayfield. It was as if his chords were the echoes of Ms. Mayfield's broken heart. It was lovely, but after an hour a bit too heavy for my taste.
After the opening doom and gloom, Annuals were a breath of fresh air. With two drum sets, two spare drums, three guitars, one bass, and a keyboard, Annuals clearly adhere to the philosophy that idle hands are the devil's play things. Each of the six members of this band had something to hit, strum, or pound on at any given moment. Nor were they restricted to just one instrument. The opening number, Hot Night Hounds, had not one, not two, but four members of Annuals pounding away on the drums in a frenzied sort of ecstasy. Each of the drum sets were clear with colored lights that flashed when you hit them, and so your eyeballs were just as entertained as your ears when they played.
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The sextet from North Carolina, Annuals have a lush, multi-layered pop that filled the Troubadour with a ghostly warmth. Purple and green lights beamed down from the ceiling and Baker's powerful high-pitched voice gave the room an unearthly feel. Annuals is an unlikely mix of lush pop melodies with a front man who has a voice that is most commonly found leading top 40 emo bands. My photographer and I agreed that he sounds most like Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance. This is not a bad thing, however. The bizarre fusion of Baker's high-pitched voice and the Annuals lovely melodies create an utterly unique almost mystical sound. It will be really interesting to see what they do next.
Photos by Leslie Kalohifor the LAist.
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