Fruit Bats

Sun., March 21, 9 p.m., $12, with Blue Giant, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.

by Brian Howard

rock/pop

James Mercer may be off doing his electro-pop thing with Broken Bells, but that doesn't mean you need to go without oblique, brainy, navel-gazing guitar pop. Eric Johnson, the only permanent member of Fruit Bats, is also, as of this writing, at least, a member of Mercer's rotating Shins. The big Shin's influence on Fruit Bats' 2009 effort The Ruminant Band (Sub Pop) was instantly palpable. A collection of opaque little parables you need a lyric sheet and Wikipedia to parse — "You'll come back as the soil before you come back as a soul"; "You'll always have smokes if you always give buckets of love"; "Not old enough to drink but the best age to get drunk" — The Ruminant Band (a reference to cud-chewing beasts that may nod to how much chewing the songs require) rewards careful listening, but is plenty pretty even if you don't know what the hell he's talking about.