Grade: A+
While the young bands plunder the 1980s for every last gobbet of tinny synth and hi-hat, the singer-songwriters remain happily anchored in that much more agreeable decade which came directly before. The 1970s was the era of the introspective, self-pitying, prolix, hairy and winsome singer-songwriter — both the good ones (Young, Martyn, Buckley) and the, ahem, less gifted (Taylor, Forbert, Stevens). Father John Misty, aka Joshua Tillman and once the drummer in the most boring and epicene band I have ever seen (Fleet Foxes), is all of those adjectives I mention above. On this album the production values are purloined from mid-1975, right down to the occasional spasm of glam guitar, the tasteful piano, the strummed acoustic, the strings. Listen and you’ll hear early Elton John, mid-period Paul Simon, whiffs of Lou Reed and Warren Zevon.
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