Gold Past Life marks both an end and a beginning. It’s the end of an unintentional thematic trilogy of records that beganwith 2014’s EDJ (a solo record by name, but a Fruit Bats release in spirit) and hit a peak with 2016’s Absolute Loser. They encompassed years of loss, displacement, and the persistent, low-level anxiety of the current political climate. They were written in the wake of friends who left these earthly confines and families that could have been. These songs on Gold Past Life, also represent new beginnings the journeys that await after making it through troubled times. In fact, the notion of getting in a van to move on—literally and metaphorically—is exactlywhat Gold Past Life is all about. It’s about rejecting notions of idealized nostalgia (Gold Past Life) and the process of grounding one self in the present, both geographically (A Lingering Love, Ocean) and spiritually (Drawn Away). Johnson’s falsetto still shines atop the bopping folk-rock of Gold Past Life. However, the new record also features more keyboard influences and a range of guests including Greta Morgan (Springtime Carnivore, Vampire Weekend), Neal Casal (Circles Around the Sun), Trevor Beld Jimenez and Tim Ramsey (Parting Lines), Meg Duffy (Hand Habits), and more.