June Gloom is upon us in Southern California and with it comes quiet mornings of reflection. Grayness inches across the city before burning away and making space for another hopeful, sun-drenched evening. These periods of introspection and wondering look different depending on where you live. For me in Los Angeles, they are most potent during a June Gloom morning. For Eric D. Johnson, they are found in Midwest landfills.
Johnson, who’s long performed under the moniker Fruit Bats, flawlessly captures this feeling in his forthcoming 10 song metaphor appropriately titled The Landfill, scheduled for release on June 12th. An album that frames memory, experiences, and consequences as debris to be analyzed and leveraged for future possibilities, The Landfill can easily be debated as the best Fruit Bats record to date.
It kicks off with the cinematic, melancholy “The Saddest Part of the Song,” a track that leads you into the album by begging you to wander aimlessly around a meadow or drive down some empty road and just think. This is a project paired best with staring off into the distance and the first track demands such a thing.
Johnson’s soulful, earnest, longing voice shines all throughout The Landfill, but it’s backed by some of the fullest, well-rounded compositions you’ll find on any Fruit Bats record. This is largely due to tracking the songs together, live in one room. In 2026, this is always a deliberate decision and I can’t stress enough how much it pays off here.
A stand out track for me, outside of the aforementioned perfect opener, is “Silverfish in the Sink.” While most of the album is rich with Americana band treatment, “Silverfish in the Sink” strips down to mostly piano and Johnson’s thoughtful vocals. A song seemingly about Los Angeles with its references to wildfire ash and coyotes (although it really could be any city), the fifth track addresses an emptiness and the questioning that comes with city living but also just life in general through hardships and loneliness. Like every other song on the album, the past is kindling to spark the narrator’s view on the future. This goes back to the main metaphor Johnson focuses on: the act of standing atop a pile of experience (the landfill) to look out into what’s next.
This metaphor is of course most apparent in the title track which closes out the LP. Another driving song reminiscent of The War on Drugs with its atmospheric guitar, “The Landfill” really comes to you like a painting. It’s a perfect Midwest track but it’s also relatable to any human, no matter their location. It is both hopeful and deeply sad depending on how you look at it. And such is life. And such is this album.
The Landfill will be undoubtedly be placed on many 2026 top album lists, for good reason. To listen to this LP is to not only address change, but to welcome it in the most thoughtful way you can. Or, at the very least, think about that change and long for the best outcomes with a beautiful soundtrack to lead you there.
The Landfill is out everywhere on June 12th on Merge Records. Listen to its three singles here:
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