"The Ruminant Band"- Fruit Bats

8.1

Eric Johnson's voice sounds just as much like My Morning Jacket's Jim James as he does James Mercer. "the Ruminant Band" sounds as much like the Shins playing Blitzen Trapper, as it does Fleet Foxes playing Neil Young. There are plenty of comparisons one can draw from listening to Fruit Bats, but the band does well to retain their own brand of alt-country mixed with americana and of course folk (lead singer Johnson hardly lets an acoustic guitar go farther than inches from his hands).

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The vocal phrasing is similar to the Byrds. One line goes up, one goes back down. Johnson's voice does well with both, by the way. The music is the folky sometimes americana, while the vocals and guitar solo lines are the alt-country. The lyrics have their own Fruit Bats twist as well. Mexicans, hobo girls, Indian casinos, etc.

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"Primitive Man" is one of the greatest tracks of the year, and an incredible way to start out an album. The reverb applied to each song sounds like the vocal and the acoustic guitar was recorded in a big open room with stained-glass windows, with the sonic guitar passages then laid over. The title track carries the same sonic-meets-down home wonder as the opener. These songs also have a great camp-fire atmosphere to them. The listener, after three or four tracks could go as far as to describe their sound as "alt-country-campfire indie rock"; you heard it here.

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"Tegucigalpa" brings in the Western country influence. Which could make Eric Johnson and band look like a baroque Johnny Cash. "Beautiful Morning Light" is the first quaint campfire singalong that you can feel the strings being strummed, a style that recurrs in "Singing Joy to the World" again, possibly more so. That song makes you want to stare out a window on a beautiful summer morning. I feel like this album was released at the perfect time.; August. This is, to me, an August album, evoking sunlight, girls, love, happy feelings, old country Michigan, and rural fields at every chance it gets to. The instrumentation on this album should not go un-noted. Like I mentioned before, the guitar work is sonic, the bass and drums compliment it well, with sliced, punchy piano when needed: "the Hobo Girl", "Being on Your Own", "My Unusual Friend". "The Hobo Girl" brings back that late Byrds-esque psychedelic country rock feeling. It almost feels like the Fruits Bats are the Byrds of our era. The final track, "Flamingo", sounds like it was recorded in the 1930's.

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So basically what you have here is a modest album that comes off wonderfully most of the time, but does get too repetitive with the token alt-country at times. But please pay attention if you're looking for an end of the summer album full of county fairs, summer love, holding hands, and singing at the campfire.

Listen if you like: Blitzen Trapper, My Morning Jacket, the Byrds.

Key Tracks: "Primitive Man", "the Ruminant Band"