It’shard to imagine Fruit Bats being anyone’s favorite band: It’s taken Eric D.Johnson four years of playing sideman in bands like The Shins and Vetiver toreturn to recordingand if you’re going to take that long to put out a record,you’d better be Pink Floyd or The Flaming Lips or someone dropping a dramaticbomb of an album onto your already adoring fans. But there’s nothing dramaticabout Johnson’s music. There aren’t many hooks, and the records he and his ever-changingroster of cohorts make are just too personal to appeal universally. And, ofcourse, that’s exactly what makes them all the more significant.
Nineof the 11 songs are addressed to someone, filled with lines like “You werescreaming and sweating and crying/Dreaming of a ride in a leaky raft” and“You’ll always have smokes if you always give buckets of love,” which justleave you dying to know who that “you” is. And while there may be few hooks,there’s plenty of rambling Mermaid Avenue-styleAmericana andenough country vocal flair to recall TumbleweedConnection, neither of which could be considered insignificant albums.
