Fruit Bats - The Loneliness of the Stand-In

With a name shared with a celebrated six-string virtuoso and with the guitarist of Archers Of Loaf, he could only ever end up a musician, when you think about it. Of course, the Eric Johnson we're discussing here has one obvious distinguishing trait that nips any confusion in the bud, that "disambiguates" him, to use a word now in vogue online. It's the "D" of his middle name, which stands for Donald, but could just as easily stand for double, the duplicate of an original, the stand-in — which is, after all, how critics have often dismissed his band, Fruit Bats, in the inevitable comparison with the far more celebrated Shins (not always fairly). It's a parallel he accepted readily enough, and for several years even leaned into himself, having been a member of the Seattle band without ever daring to challenge James Mercer's uncontested rule. But it's also an unfair comparison, one that shortchanges a songwriter whose work has made a small but valuable contribution to an alt-pop scene that, truth be told, had already faded before it ever got going in earnest, leaving its mark only on the colorful soundtracks of a few early-2000s TV series. An artist perpetually unresolved yet also a storyteller of vivid imagination and fine melodic instinct, over the course of fifteen years Eric has traced a musical arc that remains distinctly his own and, at various points, rather compelling. Along the way he had a godfather of the caliber of Tim Rutili, played in Califone and Vetiver, and has survived his own artistic suicide rather well.

The folk-pop echolocator

Fruit Bats came together around 1997 in the bedroom of Eric Donald Johnson, a Chicago multi-instrumentalist barely into his twenties at the time, as pure domestic diversion with no pretensions whatsoever. The only ingredients were his melodious voice, an acoustic guitar tuned to folk registers, and a portable four-track recorder. Around that time, Eric was earning a living teaching banjo at the prestigious Old Town School of Folk Music and moonlighting as frontman of I Rowboat, an unsigned indie-rock band made up of a trio of friends his own age from the same Windy City suburb, Naperville, who shared his obsession with the Modern Lovers and the Velvet Underground: Dan Strack played guitar and bass, Brian Belval drums, and John Byce synth. It looked like just another dead-end project among countless others, and indeed I Rowboat would soon dissolve without leaving a single recorded trace.

The turning point for Eric came instead through his then-girlfriend Gillian Lisée, who played keyboards and banjo in Orso, a side project of ex-Red Red Meat members Brian Deck and Ben Massarella. It was she who introduced him to Tim Rutili, who was favorably struck by the young man and decided to give him his first real exposure on the well-received "Roomsound", the debut album by his new band, Califone. Touring with the Chicago outfit, Johnson got the chance to be noticed by other rising names on the independent scene, starting with Joe Plummer and Sam Beam. It was nonetheless Rutili and Massarella's small label, Perishable, that offered him his first contract. The honor went to his roots-leaning alter ego, Fruit Bats, which was expanded from a solo pastime into a fully fledged band, bringing in his longtime companions as well. Production of the debut was handled by Brian Deck, while Califone in their entirety (Jim Becker included) contributed as guests.

Echolocation hit stores at a less-than-ideal moment, mid-September 2001. From the opening of "Old Black Hole" onward, the pace proves slow, frugal, markedly folk, chasing an Americana that's placid yet heartfelt in the best tradition of the Jayhawks. The arrangements are substantial without ever sounding raw — if anything, they come across as rather luminous thanks to a lively strumming touch. The exploration of roots music then continues with the candor of a couple of minor vignettes: "Glass In Your Feet", built on the simple formula of voice and banjo, and the instrumental filler "Coal Age", set by the lake.

The celebration of cuteness through which the band would carve out its fifteen minutes of fame finds here a first, telling manifestation. Elsewhere there's an attempt to liven up the picture by bringing in an electric guitar that only turns menacing for dramatic purposes ("Buffalo & Dear"), suggesting a short circuit between sinister overtones and saccharine little choruses that leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste without being especially exciting, or else through some nice harmonic nuances in ballads that still feel a touch too downcast.

Fruit Bats' music is pleasant even just by nature, free of any conceptual baggage but aromatic in the right measure, perfect as unobtrusive background music (even on TV, why not). Several songs, however, run rather long (five minutes or more), a wordiness that's frankly ill-suited to an indie-folk-pop register and ends up weighing down an album that's somewhat unsure of the direction it wants to take ("Need It Just A Little" throws violins with clear country inflections into the mix). The impression is of a genuine band still too mild in its sincere impulses, undecided about what it wants to be, even if capable of opening up some lovely vistas, as in the charming falsetto pop origami of "Dragon Ships".

Eric tries to present himself as a performer shaped by shyness and tenderness, but his set of clichés — from soft-edged rebelliousness to the praise of an insecurity still stuck in adolescence — doesn't quite convince yet. The cadences are too measured, the tone more subdued than it needs to be, and our man overindulges his tendency to hide, muffling an already promising melodic instinct.

What's missing is the explosiveness the band would later display, especially live; the languid approach remains just one hazy possibility among others, and even a decent track like "Black Bells" never quite reaches the listener's heart. This test of a stumbling but romantic songwriting sensibility remains essentially unresolved, limited by a mood that's never truly sunlit and by an expressive pallor that all too often grows tiresome.

Not even the lo-fi trick manages to give this debut any truly interesting moments, so one reaches the end with one yawn too many on record, without fully appreciating the partial rebound in the closing tracks. The most notable passage is "A Dodo Egg", yet another chance to cross-breed a sunshine-pop caricature with a crooked but pointed alt-country sketch. What comes out is a small, daring, naive pastiche that at least arouses curiosity and catches you off guard thanks to a rustic weirdness untainted by overly calculated or affected quirks.

Echolocation went largely unnoticed, but the shows that followed, opening for Modest Mouse, Iron & Wine and the Shins, gave the band the visibility it needed to escape obscurity and earn itself a prestigious opportunity. It was precisely these musicians who acted as go-betweens with the top brass at Sub Pop, paving the way for Fruit Bats to join the roster. The long-awaited contract arrived in 2002, a year ahead of the sophomore effort, Mouthfuls, released with far greater promotional backing the following October. Strack and Belval were already off the radar, while Eric and Gillian (also co-writer on a couple of tracks) played every instrument alongside Brian Deck, once again confirmed as producer. The Seattle label's support had already instilled a whole new confidence in the band; the sound comes across as clearer, and the enchantment finds heartfelt expression right from the very first spin ("Rainbow Sign"). Fruit Bats don't abandon their predominantly acoustic imprint, a sort of stripped-down folk-pop, but the scope has broadened, with results that feel less like mere sketches.

Eric steps up to the lectern on "A Bit Of Wind" with his fine assortment of Shins-style tricks, though the perspective remains far more placid and far less frantically pop than Mercer's outfit, even while drinking from the same easy-listening well. Backing him is a lovely band-like arrangement (little guitars, keyboards and horns aplenty) that brings out the communal spirit and the contagious lightheartedness of this impromptu trio. Johnson's intimate delivery leans on an intimism that remains luminous nonetheless, prone to melodic hyperbole but not especially interested in raw introspection, favoring instead sparkling miniature singalongs, as in the little gem "Magic Hour".

Fruit Bats continue to favor a softly ecstatic atmosphere and show no sign of being in a hurry, avoiding the easy showstopper and stretching out their genuine elegies lazily, as if under the illusion that pleasure might never dissipate. Among their defining traits remain songwriting of pure substance and a fine attention to arrangements (perhaps with the odd minimal electronic touch à la Jason Lytle, as on "The Little Acorn"), along with a refusal of excess and redundancy. Quiet, woodland, radiant, on this transitional album they confirm the pleasant marginality of their style, well represented by the postcard of "Seaweed", sun-drenched, sleepy and serene like an afternoon at the seaside, far from the crowds. Once again they prove themselves a creature as meek and unassuming as few others, capable, when needed, of turning (drowsily) extroverted too.

Playing without hesitation the card of a melancholy that's nonetheless comforting, almost domestic, the frontman manages to strike some important chords, even while reaffirming his fondness for an utterly unassuming style, for languid slow-motion passages that light up gradually and only in fits and starts, for a fragile, transparent songwriting approach that rules out any theatrical overreach from the outset (the lovely "Lazy Eye"). The limits of the band behind Mouthfuls remain the usual ones, starting with a praise of gentleness that, at such mild tempos, sometimes ends up translating into a precious, weightless aestheticism.

It all sounds quite lovely, but, as "Slipping Through The Sensors" confirms, there's clearly a shortage of real blood, and the occasional, modest folktronic flourishes do little to bolster yet another chloroform-induced lullaby ("Union Blanket"), which certainly doesn't thrill. The closing gem "When U Love Somebody" does however find the band shaking off their inertia and torpor, revealing them capable of something resembling an anthem — one naturally suited to the pale temper of these years, but sincere enough with its superb message of unconditional tenderness.

Eric The Tripper

Meanwhile, critics began overusing comparisons to the Shins, as if to certify the undeniable stylistic kinship within a new alt-pop scene that had Seattle as its capital, Sub Pop as its most authoritative mouthpiece, and Spinto Band, Headlights, Grand Archives and Weepies among its other ideal standard-bearers. Even though each act had put out a couple of albums, released just months apart in 2001 and 2003, the two North American bands came to be ranked according to a hierarchy dictated by the extraordinary artistic and commercial success of "Chutes Too Narrow", a hierarchy that could never again be overturned. More and more often, Fruit Bats were branded a pleasant substitute for James Mercer's band, while Johnson, cast alongside his colleague and friend as his brilliant stand-in, did nothing to resist playing along with the perceived affinity, effectively ratifying this implicit subordination by packing his bags and moving from Chicago to that very metropolis in the state of Washington. To put a symbolic seal on the first phase of his adventure, our man released, through the tiny St. Ives label, a collection of home recordings from the old four-track along with a handful of rarities: Tragedy + Time = Fruit Bats, the title of a release intended strictly for die-hard completists.

The romantic partnership with Lisée is, by now, old news, replaced by a new relationship with photographer Annie Beedy, and his former partner doesn't appear among the select handful of collaborators on the third studio effort, Spelled In Bones, unlike returning jacks-of-all-trades Dan Strack and John Byce. The album opens with the same spindly little guitars as always, but the approach is far more assured than in the past, opening up formidable, melodious vistas, with cadences no less velvety than on the two Shins-branded records (a reference that becomes downright overbearing on "Lives Of Crime").

Eric thus prepares to reach his own peak of poetic frivolity, bringing to his creation a rhythmic vigour and an emotional crescendo that had always been missing before. He doesn't give up his romantic poses, though ("Silent Life"), remaining masterful at balancing that touch of affectation with the warmth of a performance that's choral and brass-band-like as ever, free of dramatic or formal adulteration. The album unfolds like a thrilling ride, straddling tradition and more contemporary, sugary pop temptations: an irresistible mix patented by Mercer, but one that Fruit Bats also prove they can handle masterfully.

The album's first side stands out effortlessly as the cream of an entire career, led by the radiant outburst of "Canyon Girl", artisanal easy-listening with a roots imprint (courtesy of the banjo) and a license to kill. A magic formula, soon abandoned unpredictably, one the band could and perhaps should have pushed further. The peak of enchantment arrives with the dreamy harmony of another delightful ballad, "Tv Waves", an ecstasy of watercolour tones and hazy little organs, whose soft mist never stops captivating.

Johnson shows he has become a skilled creator of weary, evocative moods, with the craft of a nostalgic modulation that is convincing and never cloying. From his quiet niche, with "Born In The '70s" he sketches a sort of formidable, scaled-down generational counter-melody for those born in the Seventies, built entirely around contemplating a small world that may not be ancient (and is partly homogenised) but is already irretrievably lost. But the winning card of nostalgia is also played by the album's finest song, "The Earthquake Of '73", its gaze fixed squarely on childhood, unafraid to show all its fragility, winning us over precisely through that unmatched candour, clean faces, encouraging simplicity, and a feeling that never slips into cheap sentimentality.

Nimble and friendly, Fruit Bats show they've drawn huge benefit from shorter running times, with songs that are far more agile and well-rounded, pruned of the many decorative digressions that served no purpose and are far less sprawling. With "Traveler's Song" that very approach returns to the fore, pared down almost to the point of paroxysm. This is the ideal dimension for a band that's wholesome but never saccharine, gentle in touch and remarkably skilled at reaching its audience's heart. And the folk-pop of "Legs Of Bees" really does sound as if it were played by the spindly little legs of bees, fittingly draped in an occasional lo-fi little outfit, toy guitars and those sugary vocal blends, a domestic hymn in pastel tones and the proverbial answer of (ideal) North American bedrooms to their Swedish and Scottish counterparts, with a charm that may be a touch rustic but is nonetheless infectious. That sense of intimate wonder is also worn by a title track that slows things down decisively, in search of an enviable peace of heart and mind, perhaps the clearest reflection of the tranquil disposition of these musicians transplanted to Seattle: gratitude permeates the finale and seals a serene album, entirely played in the key of reconciliation.

Despite the decent commercial and critical reception for Spelled In Bones, Eric opts for a temporary pause in the activities of the band he created and has, in effect, run as his own exclusive pastime from day one. He then moves to California, where he strikes up a fruitful collaboration with labelmates Vetiver, led by his friend Andy Cabic (he'll appear in the credits of "Tight Knit" and "The Errant Charm"). During this same period, his nearly inevitable convergence with Shins is completed, as Johnson joins the band's ranks on a permanent basis, taking part in the recording of "Wincing The Night Away" and the follow-up "Port Of Morrow", as well as their respective promotional tours.

Fruit Bats are relaunched in 2008 with a completely revamped line-up comprising Ron Liberace Lewis aka Ghost Stories (keyboards, synth, guitars and backing vocals), Sam Wagster (guitars and backing vocals), Christopher Sherman (bass) and Graeme Gibson (drums and percussion), the latter a former Califone collaborator and future member of Disappears. The new album, the fourth in the catalogue, hits shops in August of the following year, with welcome returning guests including former patron Tim Rutili, his right-hand man Jim Becker, and old flame Gillian Lisée. The title, The Ruminant Band (with the adjective readable as either "ruminant" or "reflective", depending on how ironic you're feeling), says it all.

The gentle pop-folk miniaturist leading the resurrected band had given no warning signs, either about the comeback or about an initial, partial shift in his expressive approach, for once looking more to the melting pot of the Seventies (the era of the mythical Harry Nilsson) than to the usual, overworked Sixties. He also chooses to take a half-step back, playing the bare minimum in the studio and giving proper space to musicians he doesn't hesitate, interview after interview, to call talented. The surprises are numerous, then, even if they perhaps don't add up to the hoped-for turning point. After boarding as James Mercer's stand-in on the Shins ship a year and a half earlier, our man now seeks a kind of disguise for his own identity even at the helm of his own pet project. In the songs that open and close the album, "Primitive Band" and "Flamingo", the broad outlines of a significant revision are sketched in brief, one that concerns not just style but relationships. A shift of sorts, a sideways move towards a less definitive, more uncertain, hazier perspective. These two songs feel more like impressions than concrete snapshots. The taste for summery tones is confirmed, but this time the dreams being sketched are milder, more blurred.

The ballad with a Beatles-esque aftertaste, "The Hobo Girl", makes clear just how much Johnson craves this direction, choosing to maintain a valuable emotional and formal distance. It sounds like a song frozen in the past, intended to fool the old Fruit Bats faithful now that the priceless allure of distance is what's longed for. The same scenario plays out on "Feather Bed", with a steady, measured piano taking absolute centre stage and Eric once again playing at being little Lennon, the one from "Double Fantasy" (with Gillian cast as his Yoko). The best part is that, without overreaching, it doesn't even come off badly, and still manages to convey all the love behind the reference.

On tracks like "Beautiful Morning Light" certain feelings come into sharper focus: spare, suspended, effective at leaving flashes of enchantment thanks to an arpeggio as spartan as ever, the song is a precious acoustic testament to this curious and admirable drive for concreteness, devoted to cutting away every expressive excess. It's an approach that would do plenty of today's lightweight singer-songwriters a world of good, even thoroughbreds like M. Ward. It's a kind of unwritten commandment. "Tegucigalpa" keeps up this homeopathic tendency, this refusal of the inessential. This time, however, within these skeletal structures of little chicken bones there are still scraps of flesh carried over from the previous, far more engaging Spelled In Bones, perhaps the brightest jewel in the wandering band's catalogue.

Now, though, the change is palpable, no question about it. On the title track the delicacies that had earned the band that sliver of notoriety appear whittled down to an essentialism that feels like a postcard or a caricature: the dietary intent is admirable, pleasant and well executed as a sketch, though perhaps a touch reductive, with Eric overly committed to playing hide-and-seek. "Being On Our Own" and "My Unusual Friend" are sprightly. While largely reflecting the American songwriter's classic tone, they already embody its disavowal, for the very reason just outlined. They're calm, nowhere near visceral, but thankfully never reduced to mere exercises in style. Unfortunately, though, they don't captivate quite as much as they'd like to.

The same goes for "The Blessed Breeze", where the degree of typicality is higher but once again the accelerator isn't pressed hard enough. If enough clues add up to proof, there's no doubt this is a deliberate, carefully considered choice. After all, the colour palette (here, the more nostalgic shades) remains unchanged, so no serious side effects are to be reported while listening. This stripped-down, free-and-easy Eric Johnson, seemingly unburdened of who knows what responsibilities, deserves respect all the same. With "Singing Joy To The World" he leaves us his own breath and hits the mark, hinting at a leaner but not entirely defused variant of that genuine Shins-brand freshness. An honest piece of work, in short, undoubtedly transitional given its immediate predecessors, but far from unpleasant. For the stubbornness with which he conjugates the verb of soft focus, the blurred effect adopted as a new mental as well as aesthetic outfit, it certainly deserves at least a quick round of applause, and even a bit more from anyone feeling especially generous.

And then The Ruminant Band is a summer album, placidly summery.

The chemistry with his bandmates, in any case, proves enviable, and the new Fruit Bats work best of all live, with thrilling performances back home (at the Sasquatch and Bonnaroo festivals) and a much-appreciated, if overdue, first European tour alongside Vetiver. Eric, who had in the meantime launched a small festival, Huichica in Sonoma, California (with guests including Jonathan Wilson, J Mascis, Bob Weir, Blitzen Trapper and Beachwood Sparks), plays a key role in getting Ron Lewis into the equally revamped Shins line-up, in what, for a moment at least, looks very much like a full-scale takeover. The return to the studio, however, once again sees Johnson as the undisputed lead, assisted on the technical side by Thom Monahan, trusted producer for Pernice Brothers and Devendra Banhart, with the other musicians only marginally involved.

Tripper is released, again on Sub Pop, in August 2011.

Without much concern for trends or flirtatious winks at this or that hype, Fruit Bats carry on with their homeopathic approach, offering fans the fifth thoroughly enjoyable chapter of an already substantial discography. Looking back at its predecessor, the opening tile in this original and radical tendency toward simplification (and a personal rereading of the late Seventies, Supertramp above all), one might even be tempted to call this a happy landing, since, even without leaving any extraordinary mark, the new album shows a cohesiveness that the shaky (if not unpleasant) The Ruminant Band lacked for more than one reason.

It makes sense to describe the US band as happily settled into its new positions, even if the title of this new effort doesn't quite dispel every reservation, hinting that the band is still on a journey, searching for a clearer, more defined identity. Still, Eric and co. do seem to have taken a step forward, and it hardly matters if these songs only brush up against the perfection of those on Spelled In Bones: maybe the inspiration isn't as exhilarating as it was a few years back, or maybe these guys simply don't have much left to prove in a field where they seem to have already said and done all they could, preferring instead to shift their unmistakable art toward parallel territories — not distant, but not exactly accessible (or predictable, after all) either.

Conceived at least in part as a concept album, the record lays its cards on the table with the eloquent opening track "Tony The Tripper", an introduction to the hero and inspiration behind the story (a real person Johnson met on a train), but also an emblematic passage for a now relaxed and self-aware mode of expression. The approach follows a marked continuity with the hazy tones of the previous record, with the same mellow profile, the same soft, watercolor-muted hues that nonetheless don't smother the warmth once cultivated with such lively enthusiasm.

Once again a sense of wonder comes through, sparing but genuine, in these simple little tunes — seemingly unpretentious yet gently insinuating in their never-banal easy-listening candor, with Eric's unmistakable voice (the kind that, depending on taste, comes across as either delightful or maddeningly grating) standing out as the most striking feature even when the arrangement is bare and elusive ("Wild Honey", a lovely one).

The nostalgic aftertaste is confirmed and refined ("Shivering Fawn", where yesterday's "Canyon Girl" has now turned into a ghost), along with that taste for unaffected aestheticization, melodies frozen in an elegant past lit by a pale, cold, crisp sun ("So Long", a kind of manifesto for the new Fruit Bats).

Beyond an approach that's by now well established, the quirky crew still shows a willingness to try different solutions, betraying mild soul temptations for the first time and slotting in a trio of somewhat anomalous tracks in the album's midsection: the frivolous (but ironic) "You're Too Weird", lit up by falsetto, glittering sequins and a guitar solo that couldn't possibly be more understated; the lively "Heart Like An Orange", enlivened by splashes of synth, a subtle percussive carpet and a radiant choral backing; and the minimal pop gem "Dolly", still exceedingly spare but enriched by a genuinely infectious refrain (with a whiff of little keyboards). The band also finds a way to close the show with a song too old-fashioned not to make long-time fans' hearts flutter, outgoing yet quiet, in a renewed acoustic chase after the myth of Neil Young. This, in short, is the fifth studio effort from a band destined, it's now clear, never to scale great heights or release an absolute masterpiece — and yet one that remains honest, free from the constraints of the industry's most cynical and unscrupulous side. A small record, with unflashy songs, that manages without much effort to stick in the memory thanks to its old-fashioned charm, and a thoroughly pleasant one. These days, that's a result well worth appreciating.

Death and resurrection of the ruminant band

After the satisfying experience of Tripper, Johnson entered a phase of unstoppable creativity outside the band. Within a couple of years he wrote the score for a documentary and three feature films — "Ceremony", with Uma Thurman; the hugely successful "Our Idiot Brother", with Paul Rudd and Zooey Deschanel; and the more independent "Smashed", which won the grand jury prize at Sundance — and would score just as many in the following two years. He also kept profitably running the small festival he had founded, and made his debut as a producer, on "Passage Of Pegasus" by Breathe Owl Breathe and "Animal Heart" by Cardigans singer Nina Persson.

Then, suddenly, everything fell apart. Eric and his forty-year-old wife lost, during pregnancy, what would have been their long-awaited first child. The blow was devastating, and the singer responded by withdrawing into himself. Almost masochistically, he announced the end of the musical creature he had fathered and overseen for more than fifteen years, and the couple moved to Portland. The intention was to carry on with new projects, no longer hiding behind the mask of a moniker and a fake band. The result of this introspective drift goes by his initials, EDJ, a new intimate incarnation and a new album (out on the small Easy Sound label).

Johnson drowns his frustration and disorientation in a record that, at least at first, tries to sound as sunny as everything else he's recorded in the past, but can't hide the pain all the way through. The opening of "For The Boy Who Moved Away" takes shape as a prayer for the child never born, moving in its way even if somewhat self-contained. But it's just a brief gust of fresh air. Piano and synthetic rhythms quickly chill even the singer's well-meaning performance, hopelessly lost in his own cramped spaces and in the overly aestheticized mood of a record that comes across as both colder and noisier at once, unable to draw the listener in.

A sense of alienation and clouded clarity can be felt nearly everywhere, leading the songs to go round in circles with nothing more than the occasional decent melodic idea, never landing on anything concrete. Eric would like to sound as ecstatic and moving as his former Shins bandmate Richard Swift, but in practice he leaves us fairly cold. That's not exactly a minor shortcoming for a songwriter who's often as passionate as he is. Even when he hints at slicker, seemingly playful passages, he can't shake off those heavy shadows and that monotonous intonation, which grows tiresome without mercy (see the murky synths or the gloomy piano of the two central filler tracks, "The Magical Parking Lot" and "Salt Licorice").

Yesterday's magic survives here only as pale echoes, drained of their original joy and reduced to icy simulacra of pure madness, soulless and spineless exercises in style, as in "A West County Girl". Meanwhile, his fondness for the marginal has crossed a line, and the minimal-electronic outfit adopted for the occasion only makes matters worse, dampening from the outset any chance of emotional involvement. In the closing stretch, the saturnine mood returns with that sense of lifeless whining, of whitish haze, which cools interest even further and leaves the American songwriter locked in an unbridgeable distance. "Child In The Wild" offers only a fleeting illusion with that flicker of old-time lightness, not enough to work the miracle and redeem an album that's disheartening from every angle. The leaden, desolate close of "The Mountains On Fire (In The Rearview)", an almost autistic display of a restlessness that seems to have no boundaries left, clears away any remaining doubt and leaves the gloom free rein.

Solitude does the musician no favours at all, but it's nostalgia that pulls him out of the shallows of a downward spiral that reeks of a genuine dead end. Barely two years after shutting down the most important project of his life, Eric retraced his steps to announce its unexpected return. It would, however, only materialize a few months later with the sixth chapter of the Fruit Bats story, Absolute Loser (the first without the Sub Pop label in nearly fifteen years), again with Thom Monahan behind the desk and a brand-new lineup (Kevin Barker of Vetiver, Brian Kantor and David Dawda) backing the frontman.

"From A Soon-to-be Ghost Town" brings back the revived band sounding as spry as in the old days, buoyant enough with the sparkle dictated by the piano, and a Johnson back in form with some real shine, clearly opting for a leaner approach to both arrangement and songwriting, favouring the same nimble formula as the latest Nada Surf — not overly elaborate, but plenty vital on an emotional level.

The vigour of the opener is immediately confirmed by a track like "Humbug Mountain Song", if anything even snappier and more frenetic. If the aim was diversion, pursued through an urgent and reasonably lively sound, then the goal has clearly been achieved. Beneath the surface, though, behind a screen of calm composure, one can still sense the fresh scars of the Chicago songwriter in a work built entirely around themes of loss and self-redefinition.

The title track dusts off the folk dress and the effective tics of their best days, without silencing that undertow of bitterness which this time works as an indispensable goad and lends a bit of depth to otherwise flimsy soundscapes. Fragile yet intense in its familiar romanticism, Eric doesn't hide an emotional vulnerability never so significant in the once-naive sketches of the past, a rocky path nonetheless walked with the necessary humility and judgment. Sadness can be felt around every corner, but it never wins out, because in the end it's pride that gets the last word.

Fruit Bats thus opt for a return that's anything but narrow, more plastically (and superficially) rock, yet delivered with a still fairly uncontaminated genuineness, between hearty roots inflections (in the manner of the Decemberists of “The King Is Dead“) and good reserves of enthusiasm. At times they seem intent on reviving their usual frugal outlook, but without the brisk exuberance that once drove them to amaze even with little, replaced this time by a mature disenchantment, painful but never raw, which drapes several of the new songs in autumnal tones and reins in yesterday's joyful miniature virtuosity in favor of a more level-headed gaze.

That said, pop outlets are never entirely off the table, and at the price of some non-crippling banality, they noticeably lift the mood. The quartet plays the card of an undemanding yet apparently radiant jangle-pop, which, for a good cause, embraces more schematic solutions than usual but still manages to deliver lovely, passionate refrains, pocket-sized distillations of melancholy that know exactly how to stick in the mind ("None Of Us", for instance).

Though restrained, the album still comes across as fresh and engaged as its predecessors, never crushed by the kind of chilling introspection that, had it resurfaced after the EDJ solo debut, would have marked a point of no return for his musical creature.

In the closing stretch, the call to lighten up – also as a form of self-motivation – tends to become literal ("It Must Be Easy"), reaffirming the need to look ahead with renewed optimism. A logic that also runs through the farewell of "Don't You Know That", nostalgic yet careful to dodge the traps of self-pity, perfect for rediscovering the lovable little band we once knew. A touch less street-smart and carefree, but undeniably grown in character, with fewer hazy concessions to wistful wonder and a solid extra dose of substance.

Though very few would have bet on it, the second life of Fruit Bats is starting to reveal itself as a modest yet concrete promise. In the meantime, Absolute Loser has been joined by the covers-and-rarities collection The Glory Of Fruit Bats, the documentary with unreleased material Getting In A Van Again, and then Gold Past Life, the fitting conclusion to a "trilogy of loss" launched in 2014 by the bleak EDJ. Sealing Eric's decent run, even on the managerial side, is the signing of a new deal with an indie label of high standing, Merge.

It should be said: in the intentions of the Chicago songwriter, Gold Past Life is meant to represent a new beginning too, an emotional restart from introspective depths ideally filed away. Hard to say whether that's a press-release bluff, but what's certain is that the break never quite fully happens: a new summer is dreamed of and repeatedly (re)evoked, but the album inevitably feels like one of past summers, whether lived or merely longed for. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially since Johnson has always thrived in such registers. Proof enough comes with the sunset idyll that opens the record ("The Bottom Of It"), and even in the most frivolous, shamelessly seventies moments, like the title track, which recalls Supertramp (or the Bee Gees, if you prefer), a veil of melancholy peeks through.

The soft-focus perfection of Tripper remains, however, a distant memory, with the band more prosaic than ever, perhaps also wearier in the dutiful ritual of cuteness-as-art-form that has always set their work apart. Here and there you can sense a bit of that watered-down folk-pop craftsmanship (the amiable but spark-less postcard of "Ocean", a "Cazadera" that's a touch too tidy), though it doesn't feel like a penalizing flaw. Nearly matching the glittering past of Spelled In Bones, on the other hand, are the bittersweet singalongs of "Drawn Away" and "A Lingering Love", which offer the best refrains and choruses of the bunch, while on "Mandy From Mohawk", flanked by the stalwarts Ryan Adams and Neal Casal, Eric almost hams it up compared to his recent subdued standards, rediscovering winning tics that light up a rather inspired second side (from the downtempo of "Barely Living Room", where his bittersweet streak shines, to the closer "Two Babies In Michigan").

Buoyed by these impressions, and necessarily in keeping with what the American songwriter's birth certificate now states, yet another get-together (with longtime partner-in-crime Thom Monahan) at the fair of the already-heard results in a musical backdrop that's undeniably pleasant. Which translates into a result that's certainly not era-defining, but not to be sniffed at either, these days. This, at least, until the next twist from the talented alter ego Eric D. Johnson.

In the span of less than two years, the musician surprises his fans no end, first throwing them off the scent with a curious and clever reinterpretation of "Siamese Dream" by Smashing Pumpkins, then as a member of Bonny Light Horseman, the trio formed by Eric, Anaïs Mitchell and Josh Kaufman. And it's precisely from the friendship and artistic kinship with Josh Kaufman that the clearest, most empathetic Fruit Bats album is born. The Pet Parade (2023) is indeed Fruit Bats' most remarkable and fluid collection, especially enticing when Eric draws on his experience with Bonny Light Horseman (the dreamy country ballad "Discovering" and the Dylan-esque folk-pop of "All In One Go").

Eric D. Johnson takes as his model the forthrightness of Harry Nilsson ("Eagles Below Us", "Holy Rose") and the spirituality of Van Morrison ("Here For Now, For You"), marrying their best qualities across the nearly seven minutes of the title track.

Twenty years on from their debut, Fruit Bats land a few little folk-pop gems ("Cub Pilot"), a splendid piano ballad ("On The Avalon Stairs", worthy of Supertramp at their best), as well as a one-two punch of dream-pop ("The Balcony" and "Here For Now, For You") of rare intensity — and as long as they keep making records as qualitatively solid as The Pet Parade and songs as full of genuine passion as "Gullwing Doors" and "Complete", they'll be hard to ignore.

Capping off the operation, a double anthology of hits and unreleased tracks is released (Sometimes A Cloud Is Just A Cloud: Slow Growers, Sleeper Hits, And Lost Songs), closing a chapter and projecting the Fruit Bats name into the future.

With the new lineup – Josh Adams (drums, percussion, organ and synth), David Dawda (bass), Frank LoCrasto (piano and synth) and Josh Mease (guitar, synth and bass) – the American band puts together a record with a decidedly loose, spirited tone, well suited to a surefire live rendition.

The eleven songs of A River Running To Your Heart (2023) don't dwell on any single geographic-stylistic identity: drawing from the roots of American music, Eric D. Johnson alternates the joys of power-pop with the intensity of California's folk tradition, pleasantly pushes the sound toward electronics with a glitchy spirit ("Rushin' River Valley"), and ramps up the enthusiasm and optimism with exemplary pop songs, chief among them the pulsing, danceable "See The World By Night" and the perfect synthesis of 70s folk ballads and contemporary folk-pop that is "Waking Up In Los Angeles". Even when lightness gets the better of inspiration and the band indulges in a crowd-pleasing folk-soul ("Sick Of This Feeling"), it's easy to forgive Fruit Bats a slight inconsistency. Harder to defend is the one moment of aimlessness and routine ("The Deep Well").

Fortunately, though, the album has other weapons in its arsenal: the joyous Fleetwood Mac-style ballad "Tacoma", the gentle acoustic-folk touch of "We Used To Live Here", the dreamy dream-pop of "It All Comes Back", a refined instrumental break ("Meridian"), and a closing track you wish would never end, "Jesus Tap Dancing Christ (It's Good To Be Home)".

After the solitary parenthesis of Baby Man, Johnson pulls the band back together for The Landfill (2026), an album that feeds on the loose, plain-spoken songwriting of that previous project. Same approach, different context: that's the whole of the revolution that not only gets Fruit Bats back on track, but even finds them delivering one of the most convincing chapters of a near-thirty-year career.

Recorded live in the studio, the album was put together quickly, the product of that much-touted phrase flux of conscience that accompanied the press releases, as well as some of the critical commentary. To be fair, the exploratory mood of these new songs has certainly drawn strength from the author's rediscovered inspiration. Johnson's ethereal, aching falsetto tiptoes into the lush climate of the 1970s, with intense singer-songwriter pieces that could easily belong on an old Bill Fay album (the gloomy yet enveloping "Wild Pony Tower Moment") or in the secret repertoire of Harry Nilsson (the evocative, minimal "Silverfish In The Sink"), the latter a track that some might also find reminiscent of Paul Buchanan's solo album with Blue Nile.

The truth is that the American songwriter has gone back to writing songs of rare beauty, chief among them the intoxicating country-soul of "The Saddest Part Of The Song", which immediately and powerfully ranks among his finest compositions, and the fact that the title track matches that greatness with a touch of celtic-soul and an instrumental swagger worthy of the best War On Drugs confirms that Johnson and company are in a state of grace.

That the musicians (bassist David Dawda, guitarist Josh Mease, keyboardist Frank LoCrasto and drummer Kosta Galanopoulos) are perfectly in sync with their leader's resurgence is obvious in the power-pop vibrations built on piano and electric guitars of "Think Aboutcha" and in the fine interplay of light and shadow in "That Goddamn Sun". Worth noting too is the skill with which the band makes room for both hope and melancholy within the same song. Even when the music flows with pop brio and lightness ("Perhaps We're A Storm"), or seems to momentarily lose substance ("Fishin' For A Vision"), the prevailing impression is of being in the presence of an excellent, winning and seductive display of songwriting.

Contributions by Gianfranco Marmoro ("The Pet Parade", "A River Running To Your Heart", "The Landfill")

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