Music review: Fruit Bats

Thursday, August 27, 2009

This is The Fruit Bats’ first new album in four years, a pretty long time for a group that got some attention with their albums Mouthfuls and Spelled in Bones and their Sub Pop signing in 2003.

Eric Johnson, lead singer/songwriter and front man, has also announced that he will be joining The Shins, so I suspect we will see even less Fruit Bats work in the future.

Nonetheless, this album is indie-folk rock at a high quality; the tracks on here are extremely well put together and are wonderful to listen to. The lyrics are suitably pastoral (the “ruminants” being the family of animals including such farm-y animals like cows and sheep) and allude to other artists’ songs (from Three Dog Night to Prince) in almost every track.

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