Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Junkmedia.org Review - Cars and riverbeds live side by side, May 12, 2003
Until recently there were three words (well, four) you could almost bet wouldn't be used in the same sentence: Sub Pop, folk and Florida. But around the end of 2002, these words started popping up in articles and reviews of Sub Pop releases, sometimes even in the same sentence. Fruit Bats are the latest addition to a growing line of like-minded, folksy artists on the Seattle label's roster.Mouthfuls, produced by Brian Deck, is a stunning bit of psychedelic folk-rock. Driven by acoustic guitar and the vocal harmonies of Eric Johnson and Gillian Lisee, the Fruit Bats aesthetic -- with help from Deck, who provides "electronics" and "household objects" -- falls somewhere between the epic pop of The Shins and the backwater electronics of Holopaw. On "The Little Acorn", the group references Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, both with the vocal arrangement and the lyric suggesting you "warm your bones", not "by the fire", as Pink Floyd would have it, but "in the northern snow". Like most songs on the album, rural allusions collide with the comparatively stiff sound of modern production. While there are fits of gratuitous electronic noodling ("Union Blanket"), it's Johnson's keen sense of melody that carries the album. On the beautiful ballad, "Lazy Eye", he sings, "You are a diamond in the dirt", summing up in one line the confluence that becomes the de facto theme of the album: the juxtaposition of the natural and the produced, the organic and the electronic, a world where cars and riverbeds live side by side. Mouthfuls is essential for anyone currently enthralled by Sub Pop's bold and pastoral new directions. Rob Young
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great album!, March 31, 2004
I just read that Gillian Lisee has left the Fruit Bats, and that's a shame, since "Mouthfuls" was one of my favorite under the radar standouts from last year, carting in a load of farm fresh contemporary folk slightly flavored of psych pop. "Slipping Through the Sensors" was the first song that stole my heart. It begins with simple, sour plucking, almost ala some Americana, then Eric Johnson's vocals appear and the song goes on to feature some great harmonizing in front of a lumbering piano melody and some tambourines.In the liner notes, thanks are given to the Fruit Bats label mates, you might have heard of them, THE SHINS, and you can hear their influence on this album at times; compare the opening of "Rainbow Sign" to Chutes Too Narrows "Young Pilgrims". "A Bit of Wind", from whence the name of the album comes, is another highlight. Born from a vocal opening Brian Wilson would be proud of, it settles into strumming its little heart out while these strange stereophonic stingers go from ear to ear of the listener, and Eric peppers you with musings "It takes love by your thumbs, down in the abyss / the hidden messages / of things that you miss / it takes mouthfuls / of Niagra Falls"). I look forward to whatever release comes next from this band, though with the loss of a founding member I wonder what changes might be in store. Nevertheless, if you like psych, pop, or folk... this album should be on your shelf as one of the sleeper hits of 2003.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'member on the bus, May 4, 2003
This album calls up images of nature and love. Love is not only a "circle in the snow," it is also a bloody tooth and indeed your hand on my knee. The lyrics are evocative, the instrumentation tasteful and the performances inspired. When Eric and Gillian sing together it is like the sweet sting of a green apple jolly rancher on your tongue...in the summer...under the big oak tree in your grandma's yard...riding in that old tire swing...with a sixty eight degree breeze blowing through your hair...yeah. Brian Deck's production work is percussively inspired as always and attentive to the psychedelic folk-rock nature of the music. If you like love and you love nature; if you believe love is both scary and exciting, possible and unimaginable, give this little gem a listen and if you're anything like me, you'll find it seems to get stuck in your player for hours, maybe even days on end.
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album Mouthfuls 
