The king of killer opening lines Josh Tillman returns with another majestic, beautifully melodic, grandiose, playfully clever, darkly humorous and philosophical set of eight epic songs fuelled by a sense of mortality and enduring irony. The title takes its name from a Sanskrit world meaning “great cremation ground” and the opening track plays with ideas of this world and the next, narrating tales of an allegorical “fallen star” and a supermarket chain. It’s poetic, oddball, but mesmerisingly classic FJ Misty, about the world still turning to shit (modern life is “a scheme to enrich assholes”) but also “in thе next universal dawn” we “won't have to do thе corpse dance”. Musically this is also familiar ground – a resplendent, slow, serene, lavishly orchestrated and soaring 70s pop sometimes akin to Al Stewart. But the standouts here are the catchy, fuzz rock of She Cleans Up, inspired by Jonathan Glazer’s brilliantly disturbing 2013 film adaptation of the science-fiction novel Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien who seduces and kills men in Scotland; the fourth-wall style Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose, in which he’s having a surreal, world-weary sighing encounters such as: “She put on Astral Weeks, said ‘I love jazz’ and winked at me / This is the last place I oughta be”, and then has a disturbing acid trip; the epic, richly satisfying refrain and vivid narratives of the toe-tapping gentle funk-pop of I Guess Time Makes Fools of Us All; the powerful yet tender Screamland (“love must find a way / after every desperate measure, just a miracle will take”); and the romantic, melancholy, closer Summer’s Gone (“What do you tell the madman / Who want's to see you dead / When against your will, comes wisdom / And 40 more years left ahead”), filled with swooning violins and piano, like some timeless number from an old black-and-white movie. Life may be difficult and troublesome, but the beautiful, smooth melodies and meticulous droll lyrics abide. Out on Bella Union.
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