On Echolocation, the debut album by the young Chicago outfit the Fruit Bats, Deck and front man Eric Johnson, himself a member of latter-day Red Red Meat offshoot Califone, manage a similar trick, but seemingly in reverse, bundling disparate shards of rustic roots-rock debris and slippery psych-pop reverberations into a package closely resembling a pop record. All the evidence is there: "Need It Just a Little" weaves acoustic-guitar arpeggios into a hazy junkyard lullaby; "Buffalo & Deer" stomps like an outer-space marching band; and "Coal Age" suggests just that with warped banjo and distant slide guitar. Throughout, Deck and Johnson never let the backwoods doodling get too far away from them, keeping the sound effects and jamming potential to a handsome minimum.
Of course, approaching the problem from this end rather than Modest Mouse's practically guarantees a less cohesive and ultimately shallower result, and Echolocation rarely reveals the sonic depths or emotional reserves Antarctica practically wallowed in. But in the currently crowded roots-rock field, it's an effective solution to a common problem, and in any field a pretty good way to make the otherworldly obey gravity.
