Consumer Guide Album

Fruit Bats: The Ruminant Band [Sub Pop, 2009]
The fourth and best-by-a-mile folk-rock album from sometime Shin Eric Johnson and his cud-chewing sidemen is a message to the freak-folk from "a broke-legged paint in a herd full of unicorns." With kind melodies and pointed wordplay, he sings the abiding skepticism of someone who believes we live again as soil, not soul. With a sweetness firmly attached to the things of this world, he celebrates the granite peak, the will-o'-the-wisp, and too much love. A-