“Mahashmashana: Embracing Cynicism with a Twist of Fun!”

By
Eric Shackleford
   
1/14/25 10:30pm

Featured track: Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose

Rating: ★★★★

This is it: your beanie-wearing pal’s latest beloved “independent” album. They likely mentioned that it launched the same day as Kendrick Lamar’s unexpected album “GNX”, and they most certainly mispronounced the title. So just how remarkable is it really?

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The opening eponymous track makes a powerful initial impression. Massive strings and bluesy saxophone create a sound environment of ironically victorious resignation. Throughout this nearly ten-minute ballad, Josh Tillman sings lyrically and proudly about the present-day apocalypse he observes in his surroundings. He expresses his pseudo-nihilistic disenchantment with self-satisfied confidence. The song’s orchestral folk style prominently features in Tillman’s earlier works under the alias Father John Misty, but here it appears fully polished and on the largest possible scale.

In many of the later tracks, Tillman diverges from his signature sound in various ways. On “Screamland,” he alternates between a somber, slow piano and overwhelming noise crescendos with the loud and tortured refrain “stay young / get dumb / keep dreaming / screamland.” 

In “She Cleans Up,” Tillman experiments with groove-laden alternative rock inspired by the Viagra Boys, and with “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All,” he delves into electric jazz fusion. These more daring explorations don’t always showcase the album’s most robust songwriting, but they result in a more captivating listening experience than previous works. Even Tillman’s least impressive lyrics manage to convey the album’s core discontent with a hint of trademark humor.

Of the remaining tracks, many compensate for their relative instrumental simplicity by delivering more pointed critiques. “Mental Health” mocks the modern industry surrounding its title. Tillman concludes the track with the lines “This dream, we’re born inside / Feels awful real sometimes / But it’s all in your mind,” framing “mental health” as a blissful ignorance commodified for a despairing society.

The album’s zenith, “Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose,” also operates within a relatively confined framework. The song offers an uncomfortable, amusing, and drug-laden narrative of paranoia and seclusion. Instrumentally, the track includes a laid-back piano and drumline accented by sporadic electric guitar riffs and jarring string interruptions, mirroring the concealed social hazards Tillman confronts during his misadventure gone awry. 

Unable to drive himself home and becoming increasingly suspicious of his host’s manipulations, Tillman ponders “Performance art? / An elaborate con? / Baby, who wears pears at 4am?” Though Tillman’s dose may have been an attempted act of escapism, with the distance it affords, he’s becoming increasingly aware of the superficiality surrounding him. As his misadventure concludes, he reflects “I saw something I shouldn’t see / The awful truth, bare reality / That I’d forfeit my existence / If someone let me just play with them.” The almost-cheerful cynicism of the opener has dissipated, revealing Tillman’s longing for his former innocence, enabling him to turn away from his grim realizations.

“Mahashmashana” presents an exceedingly cynical perspective alongside the shortcomings of drugs, dissociation, and mental self-care in addressing the resulting disillusionment. Despite this, the album’s relatability and humor provide a surprisingly cathartic experience. Overall, Tillman’s latest, sonically varied record makes a compelling argument for being the finest Father John Misty album to date.

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