The sweeping, swooning, beautifully melodramatic world of Father John Misty's latest album is quite a thrill.
Also known as Josh Tillman, ex-drummer and singer for Fleet Foxes, FJM has crafted 11 tracks that not only lay out his significant rhythmic and melodic contributions to that group, but lets his talents run full tilt. It's a pleasure t ear something so whole-hearted, and filled with instruments.
He employs orchestral strings, a mariachi band, a ragtime jazz combo, with the skill of Scott Walker, but he also knows when to strip things back to piano and guitar. Couched as "a concept album about a guy named Josh Tillman", his second solo effort takes all Tillman's thoughts about love, both good and bad - jealousy, boredom, fragility, paranoia, complete surrender, delight, breathlessness - and holds them up next to questions about the world, anecdotes, encounters, and experiences both real and imagined.
The lyrics are entirely serious, yet full of cynicism and humour, and that's what makes them more relatable than his first solo effort Fear Factor. They're unobscured, and delivered with aching conviction, in soaring, heart-wrenching tones.
"It has decidedly more soulful presence than Fear Fun, due in no small part to the fact that I am truly singing my ass off all over this motherf***er" he says in the accompanying press release, and he's right.
