Father John Misty Dances With Death

Death comes for us all, but not before time makes fools of us first. And when you really get down to it, that interminable time in between, life — all-consuming, enthralling, devastating, and dynamic as it may be — is largely spent dying. Mahashmashana, the new album from Father John Misty, isn’t an effort to square that circle, but feels fascinated by that monumental conundrum with only one answer.

The album’s title is the Sanskrit word for “great cremation ground” — “all things going thither,” Josh Tillman reminds us in the press material. But while his focus may be on the end, Mahashmashana is anything but dour or doleful. It’s flush instead with Tillman’s typical cryptic wit and heady musings. “The engine of civilization/Coffee and a cigarette/Found no better means of revolt yet,” he opines on “Mental Health.” And the album’s title-track begins with the lines, “His body is a Gelson’s/Her soul, the fallen star” — a spiritualized reference to the upscale L.A. supermarket chain used as a launchpad for an epic meditation on corporeal form. 

Where Tillman’s last album, 2022’s Chloë and the Next 20th Century, was a trippy take on the Old Hollywood and the Great American Songbook, Mahashmashana largely returns to the sweeping, Seventies-steeped orchestral pop rock that’s always suited Father John Misty best. Most of the songs stretch past the five-minute mark, allowing Tillman and co-producer/arranger Drew Erickson to offer up a panoply of tones and textures. “She Cleans Up” is a rugged, chugging garage rocker; “I Guess Time just Makes Fools Of Us All” dances across a vast disco landscape; and “Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose” draws you in with a sweet soul groove before serving up blown out string stabs. 

The biggest sonic swing is “Screamland,” where an atmospheric hush builds to a, dare we say, Coldplay-esque explosion of synths. And Tillman’s characteristic lyricism (“Stabbing at the ashtray like it might give up the truth/Like it might finally confess who else you’re nearly faithful to”) settles into one of his more plainspoken choruses: “Stay young/Get numb/Keep dreaming/Screamland.” Whether it works, is likely a matter of taste, or maybe even just your mood that day; but to the extent this choice succeeds — and it largely does — is a testament to Tillman’s commitment to grand gestures. 

On Mahashmashana’s penultimate track, “I Guess time Just Makes Fools Of Us All,” Tillman spins his most intriguing and sprawling yarn about the way we live our lives broadly, but also how he’s lived his as an entertainer. He makes a quip about the Rolling Stone cover he turned down (yes, it happened), gets career advice from a rattlesnake (“Hey I can sell you a million records/I mean your image could use an overhaul”), and envisions a future out there in Vegas singing his greatest hits. All of it, Tillman seems to be saying, is just part of the set-up of the same great cosmic joke — and it’s closer “Summer’s Gone” offers a counter punchline. It’s a tender meditation on aging as the world changing, and the futility of trying to wish it all away. Instead, Tillman follows a simple path, filled with pleasure and pain, towards a kind of transcendence: “But you eat a peach/Or you skin your knee/And time can’t touch/Me.”