The Ruminant Band

Sub Pop veteran Eric Johnson makes AM Gold fresh again by filtering his own spirit through a cast of characters.

Considering that frontman Eric Johnson joined The Shins in 2007, and judging by the Chutes Too Narrow-esque cover art of the new The Ruminant Band, it might be sensible to worry that Fruit Bats have become a full-on Shins derivative. But the record—the group’s first since 2005’s Spelled In Bones—thankfully takes huge…

Eric Johnson has poked and prodded at the Fruit Bats for years, reinventing the band's lineup with every album and continually stretching the boundaries between pop, Americana, and sun-soaked folk.

Fruit Bats - The Ruminant Band review: With The Ruminant Band, the Fruit Bats have again created a record of many disparate angles, Johnson’s viewpoint on the past forty years of music chewed and re-chewed into a distinctly Fruit Bats release.<script src=