Four years on from their third album Made In Bones, The Ruminant Band represents a movement forward for Fruit Bats mainman Eric Johnson. While previous efforts have seen Johnson take a leadership role, here the band get a much greater say. The sound that the band themselves make is unabashedly west-coast pop, displaying a clear affection for 70’s AM radio classics and countryfied pop music. Guitar’s chime and occasionally twang, pianos tinkle and occasionally stomp and all the while harmonies glide by effortlessly. Johnson’s vocal throughout is sweet and swaying, exuding an easy charm. Where there was something of the campfire sing along to previous albums, the enlarged and enhanced band give the record a more substantial and focused feeling, a possible result of Johnson’s time spent moonlighting in Vetiver, and latterly as a member of The Shins.These are tales of love, and escapism from the rat race- a quick glance at track titles ‘Beautiful Morning Light’ (love up a tree), ‘Singing Joy To The World’ (love while dancing to Prince, and in a parking lot) suggests as much, and Johnson duly confirms these suspicions in the lyrics to “Feather Bed”, singing “Can’t give me too much love” while, for some reason, adopting his best Elton John tones. The musical warmth of the album is further added to by Johnson’s frequent lyrical references to moving out of the cold. The gentle finger picked "Beautiful Morning Light" sees Johnson imploring his lover to rest a while up a tree and breathe "frosty breath on the branches", while album highlight ‘Tegucigulpa’ tells of the narrators birth in the titular town, on the only day it ever snowed before promising his lover "I will always keep you warm", then building up to a chorus of “I’ll never snow on your parade.” It’s a sweet refrain to a gentle song and one that is typical of much of the record. While these are inherently simple tunes, Johnson and his cohorts remain able to move sideways from the traditional and surprise with the occasional psych wig out, flash of pedal steel or soaring harmony.There is a comfortable familiarity about The Ruminant Band, and that may prove to be it’s curse as well as its blessing. The more you listen, the more Johnsons’ irrepressible melodies and finely written tales will work their way into your conscious: all you have to do is let them. In these dark days, The Ruminant Band is a refreshing ray of sunshine. A reminder that, as Johnson sings to close the album: “Everything, everything gonna be just fine."