New Music Tuesday: Fruit Bats 'The Pet Parade'

Also, Kurt Vile's 'Smoke Ring' celebrates 10 years

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Listening to a new Fruit Bats album is like putting on my favorite pair of old jeans (or sweatpants for the times), and Eric D. Johnson’s latest effort, The Pet Parade effortlessly continues this notion.

Johnson’s project is celebrating 20 years and has me reflecting on how long I’ve been listening to this band. I first saw them open for hometown favorites The Helio Sequence at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland in late 2005, while Fruit Bats were touring for their third album, Spelled in Bones. I was hooked immediately.

Johnson has done a fantastic job keeping a consistent sound while adapting enough to stay exciting, and The Pet Parade is his most lush and instrumentally diverse effort yet.

Joined and produced by fellow Bonnie Light Horseman (included on my Top 40 of 2020 list) member Josh Kaufman, the two recorded this record remotely. It sounds opulent for a record mostly recorded in closets.

Always an ever-changing cast, this Fruit Bats album includes drummers Joe Russo (Joe Russo’s Almost Dead) and Matt Barrick (The Walkmen, Fleet Foxes, Muzz), Johanna Samuels, pianist Thomas Bartlett (Sufjan Stevens), and Jim Becker (Califone, Iron & Wine) on fiddle.

Although never in the same room, this group puts together a warm sense of camaraderie that would fool one into thinking this was a shared studio effort.

There are new tricks up Fruit Bats’ sleeves, including the opening track that shares the album’s name. Based around two chords and clocking in at nearly seven minutes, Johnson sings, “hello from in here, to all of you out there, it feels like it’s been years,” a line somehow written before the pandemic but immediately connects with the times.

“Cub Pilot” sounds like a track from Tunnel of Love before things pick up with “The Balcony,” a signature song that immediately lets you know you’re listening to Fruit Bats.

Other highlights include the reverb-drenched “Eagles Below Us,” “Holy Rose,” and “Gullwing Doors,” a track that starts like “Country Feedback” before giving way to a soaring chorus.

Johnson has been on a hot streak since 2016’s Absolute Loser, and The Pet Parade won’t let anyone down. Like all Fruit Bats albums, there are so many layers to this record that will present themselves with multiple listens.

The Pet Parade is available on Merge Records.

Anniversary Alert: Kurt Vile’s Smoke Ring for My Halo is 10

Although he had released a few prior records, Smoke Ring for My Halo is where Kurt Vile became the slacker king of indie fuzz folk.

The album is full of great Philadelphian one-liners like “if it ain’t workin’, take a whiz on the world” from “Runner Ups” and heady riffs are around every corner.

It was also the record that got me into Vile, and he has gone on to become one of my favorite live acts while always releasing top-notch albums.

Smoke Ring for My Halo makes me think of my early days in New York, listening to “Puppet to the Man” while wearing a tie and waiting for the train at 8 am.

And who could forget the marvelous Central Park Summerstage when we watched Vile open for Dawes, or his former band War on Drugs open for Guided By Voices… for FREE.

Looking back at the photos, I’m just impressed at how far phone camera tech has come:

Life is full of changes, but Kurt Vile has been a constant in my last decade. Whether touring with his band The Violators, or with Courtney Barnett, I’m always sure to catch him when he comes through town.

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