Father John Misty
Mahashmashana
SUB POP
“After a decade being born, Josh Tillman is finally dying,” reads a tagline for Mahashmashana, the sixth album by Father John Misty. The opening track on the ’70s-genre-atomizing release—its title a reference to “a great cremation ground” in Sanskrit—proposes “a corpse dance,” and Tillman later sings on the amplified mid-album power ballad “Screamland” that “It’s always the darkest right before the end” before responding to himself with a bit of his typical sarcastic counsel: “Stay young, get numb, keep dreaming.”
Playful winks at the camera, deadpan social satire, and clever turns of phrase have always been Tillman’s trade. For over a decade now, Tillman has used that sullied lens to express commonplace observations on his relationships, American culture, and his connection to film. Yet on Mahashmashana, he doubles down on his favorite theme of death to darkly comedic proportions, while also touching upon America’s ongoing lust for religion and power, concepts that have long been swirling in Tillman’s glass with midlife ruminations on mental well-being deteriorating in front of a phone screen. The strings, horns, saxophones, woodwinds, and electric guitar continue to buttress his folky chamber pop beyond ’70s pastiche. A few strands of lyrics also hit differently in the wake of recent American events.
Tillman’s musical craft in the studio with longtime producer Jonathan Wilson has also sharpened over time, from his breakout fan-favorite I Love You, Honeybear to 2022’s Hollywood-on-the-rocks epic, Chloë and the Next 20th Century. Wilson is credited this time as an executive producer, with Drew Erickson co-producing alongside FJM coming off beautifully orchestrated arrangements for Chloë as well as on recent albums from Lana Del Rey, Weyes Blood, and Tim Heidecker. The new production pairing was a wise choice, since the recent excesses on God’s Favorite Customer and Pure Comedy are trimmed here to eight robust songs.
Most of these tracks land the plane except for possibly the satirical “Mental Health.” It’s a curio that doesn’t have the gut-check rock-and-roll chops of other tracks such as “She Cleans Up” or the disco-grooving single “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All.” The title track stretches out to 10 minutes, but is a breeze even on repeat listens. Even the navel-gazing soul on “Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose” is nostalgic at this point in his career. By the time we get to the album closer, we’ve waded through a lot of death and ailments so that the Old-Hollywood swoon we hear on “Summer’s Gone” at least shows Tillman is still a romantic even at 43. On Mahashmashana’s penultimate track, he even envisages a lurid Las Vegas residency for himself in his golden years, implying that Father John Misty will continue to wink at death even as it dances him into the grave under the city’s big lights.
