For a minute there, Fruit Bats rocked. On 2009's The Ruminant Band, the quartet, lead by seasoned indie sideman Eric D. Johnson (Califone, Vetiver, the Shins), eked up the tempo-- sidelining folksier impulses in favor of gently driving guitar pop that channeled Rumors-era Fleetwood Mac. Two years later, they're back to being mellow.
With Tripper, the group's fifth album, Johnson dials Fruit Bats' pulse back down, favoring spacious and spacey songwriting that sets the lyrics front and center. It's a record full of stories, with Johnson centering most of the tunes around simple narratives and offbeat characters. On the record's opening track, "Tony the Tripper", Johnson dreams up a Kerouac-style road trip with a companion who comes across as one part railroad lifer and one part Burning Man refugee. There are troubles along the way-- schizoid episodes and punker crash pads-- but by the chorus, Johnson and his imagined companion usually have things sorted out: "We was all under the date palm tree/ They left the rolling of one up to me/ Knowing the world might end tomorrow anyway."
The only problem is that Johnson's tales aren't all that hooky. At least, not enough to buoy Tripper's soft and moody music. Conflict, resolution, and character development often slip by unnoticed, eased in their passage by the woozy synths and atmospherics that function as the album's rough-spot-smoothing sonic hand lotion. On the reverb-soaked "Wild Honey", Johnson's lyrics are placed prominently in the mix-- "Each empire who inherits the sea, rises and retreats into foam/ In the ash there stirs a seed, empty between what's unseen and unknown"-- but get lost in the woozy ambience. The imagery is rich but abstract, and there's not enough muscle in Johnson's plinking guitar to prop it up.
Johnson fares better when he takes a more casual tone, as on "Tangie and Ray", which follows a pair of hippies as they flee society for nature and, by the sound of it, certain doom. "Now they're one with the dirt, and the mouldering bones and litter leaves," he yelps. It's one of Tripper's more upbeat tunes, benefiting from the full band accompaniment and a driving drum beat. But while the rhythm section makes a difference, it helps that Johnson is keeping a straightforward narrative. He's better with rogues and riffs than heady prose.
