Fruit Bats

Fruit Bats has famously been Eric D. Johnson’s other band. The sunshine-infused melodies that he penned for the first few Fruit Bats albums came only between farming out his talents to different groups — Califone, Vetiver, Ugly Casanova or, most recently, the Shins. But the fruit of his Bats labor, Echolocation, Mouthfuls and Spelled in Bones, is a gathering of highlights from the folk-rock revival of the past decade. Johnson is a busy musician, so it’s understandable that he took a four-year break between 2005’s Bones and last year’s The Ruminant Band. The wait resulted in a more finely tuned effort than what came before. Light, brightly colored and sweet, the band’s familiar grooves hit exactly right.