Review Summary: Let’s get married in every religion and be sad together.
A friend to banshees and tragedians alike, Josh Tillman operates on a level of theatre kid dramatics generally reserved for drag renditions of ancient Greek plays. He has built an impressive career of you-wish-you-wrote-it text and increasingly more grand arrangements and concepts. While his larger-than-life operatic albums often strike as indulgent in the worst sense of the word, he often cleverly intersperses those with the release of a more quaint album just for the sake of musical pleasure. If at every turn it seems like Tillman thinks himself the main character of the world, his every other release is then just him relaxing and taking a day off from influencing the minds of his flock.
Mahashmashana bridges the two worlds of Tillman’s work and comes out on top as a surprising triumph, where both engrossing progressivity and carefree looseness find their common ground.
If Tillman’s previous tribute to 1960s adult contemporary casino music in
Chloe was fitting poorly his need to be clever at all costs with the drowsy writing,
Mahashmashana comes as a reimbursement to all who had to sit through that album. “Here, this is what it was supposed to sound like.” Indeed, lyrically and melodically at least this new one strikes gold in contrast with its predecessor, whether or not you find Tillman’s Tumblr-able smartassery appealing. It is somewhat refreshing to find out that Tillman’s writing is not really the result of some art school snobbery, but of genuine curiosity. The album’s title alone is apparently not the visionary spiritual revelation most Sanskrit titled albums are, but rather Tillman finding it amusing how many sh and mh graphemes the word had, then reverse-engineering themes from that. That kind of approach akin to a college paper close to deadline appeals to a particular sense of artistic nonchalance. An album can be whatever the *** you want it to be.
Even in an album that is name first, idea second, the title track presents a curious view of love. It is as mundane as taxes in the greater sense of time and universe, but it is time and universe itself in the smaller sense of now. What is a corpse’s dance a thousand years ago or from now to that you dance today? And what little significance is today to the weight of history? But it can only mean everything still. Wrapping a concept anything but novel in a blanket of cosmos and temporal transcendentalism acts in both a way terrifying and cozily fuzzy. To those groaning now because Father John Misty once again invokes interreligious pastorals to profess futility of love, fear not, for the following “She Cleans Up” grounds the sound back into some dusty desert cowboy swagger reminiscent of his early albums (but mostly
Fear Fun). The following “Accidental Dose” does about the same, but routinely splashing Tillman’s beloved loungy atmosphere all over the song, culminating in a ghostly string swirl. Plus an intentional dose of self-awareness and signature soft humour. We are now comfortably out of the 60s, entering 70s recreational drug era.
These generally self-nostalgic cuts lead up beautifully into one of album’s crowning jewels, “Mental Health”. It, along with “I Guess Time Just Makes a Fool of Us All”, is everything Father John Misty is known for at its liveliest: gorgeous arrangement, building song-writing with a cathartic payoff, and lyrics verging between hilarious and depressing. The former takes a shot at what David Berman called a “surprise ending”, as in the end of the world being the nervous breakdown of everybody, as we are seeing gradually making turns the world over. The song also, again in a funny-sad way, acts like a powerless observer of the health’s decay, understanding it is being experienced by everyone. Take care of yourselves, but is it not just so funny how we are all suddenly the same brand of broken and lost? And how come we can label every disorder with mathematical precision, yet we cannot make it go away? But while “Mental Health” views this universality of depression with unease, “I Guess Time Just Makes a Fool of Us All” takes the path of jaded acceptance. It is what it is, says the song. We have started the album with celebrating the importance of now in the face of forever and have since progressed into cynical sneering at forever taking over now. I wonder if something nasty had happened to Josh Tillman between writing those two songs. The song also sports some of act’s most silky suede instrumentation, circling once again back to the sexy smooth sensuality
Chloe failed to accomplish. If “You will find me in Las Vegas doing my greatest hits” is the foresight of the future, then this track is built perfectly to mock the casino-only aesthetic, but could fit right in once Tillman reaches his feared career stagnation.
The album flows effortlessly and damn near flawlessly that it in its musical anxiety decides to take a critical misstep, as a treat. All of its most frustrating and underwhelming elements are primarily concentrated in one single baffling, ill-inspired track, “Screamland”. If not for this glorious monstrosity, “Being You” and its sheepish slop would have been album’s main dip. But here we are, “Screamland” tears like a glitterbomb in an oxygen tank, also wholly unnecessary. My general disdain for this song comes from several factors: its frustratingly dull tune tripping over itself in one place instead of progressing, and its bizarre choice of production. Tillman’s vocals have never been the arena-sized showstoppers he always wanted them to be, but for the most part he has at least always managed to fit the song to his range. If it is not the voice, then it is the strings that will carry the tune. But paired with an awkward synth and overproduced sound it their dysfunctionality on the track shines like an oncoming LED headlight, unpleasant and irritating, leaving you blinded and annoyed for at least one more track. Jarring crackle on the chorus mix aside, the song also sounds like dragged out of a completely different album, doing Moses with the album’s hitherto pretty clear direction.
Setting that unpleasant chapter aside, it appears as though the mixed reaction to
Chloe got to Tillman a little, even if covertly. The closer “Summer’s Gone” in its whimsical sourness could have sat confidently in the middle of that tracklist, being its undeniable highlight. At once, Tillman proves that the extra soft Lynchian veneer of that album was no misstep, but an intention. With its lullaby for adults quality, the song reassures of a better ending than most of the album’s previous cuts have threatened: “Time can’t touch me”. Although it feels as a more Tillman-to-Tillman reassurance than a universal one. The fragility now comes full circle, but in reverse. We have not started with delusion and finished on acceptance, but vice versa. And it is beautiful to finally find oneself at peace with time, even if it be stemming from fantasy. I wish I had Josh’s forceful naiveite.
In the end time made fool of Josh Tillman first and foremost, him being the main character and all. But hey, fools are always the happiest.
Are you happy?
