New Music Reviews: Father John Misty, Being Dead, and Dawn Richard

I’m assuming that nobody cares about 2024 releases in February 2025. But there are still records in my pile that I didn’t get to last year. It’s not a reflection on their quality – these records were all released toward the end of 2024 and I didn’t get to them on time. Enjoy the following:

  • the sumptuously orchestrated smart-ass narratives of Father John Misty
  • the creative indie rock of Austin’s Being Dead
  • the ambient, moody R&B of Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn.

Father John Misty

Mahashmashana

2024, 8/10
Joshua Tillman worked in the shadows for years, releasing records as J Tillman and drumming for the Fleet Foxes. In 2012, he rebranded as Father John Misty. He changed his musical style from sadsack acoustic music to narrative- and personality-driven.

I realized that I am a smart-ass, and that I have always been a kind of smart-ass. So when I realized that, I realized that I had an obligation to start including my sense of humor and my actual, true, conversational voice in my music in order for it to be exclusive to me, and not to be just my best stab at trying to be a preexisting idea.

Father John Misty, No Depression

He enjoyed particular acclaim for 2015’s I Love You, Honeybear, a concept album about his recent marriage. Mahashmashana is his sixth album as Father John Misty. The album title is taken from the Sanskrit word for great cremation ground. Tillman told Mojo it was a fitting title because “there’s a lot in there about the self and about identity, and I think just the micro and the macro scale of endings.”

Tillman plays his strongest card up front, the title track with its dramatic orchestral introduction. It’s sung gorgeously, with its soaring chorus. ‘She Cleans Up’ is a great contrast, more dissonant and energetic. ‘I Guess Time Makes Fools Out of Us All’ outstays its welcome, but it’s one of the strongest songs. The sparse ‘Summer’s Gone’ is a terrific closer, like a throwback to the pre-rock era.

Mahashmashana is often sumptuous.


Being Dead

Eels

2024, 8.5/10
There are vast differences in the popularity between the artists I’ve covered in this column for 2024. Taylor Swift has over 60 million followers on YouTube. Austin trio Being Dead have less than 3,500. It’s easy to see why Swift’s poised storytelling appeals to the masses, but it’s unfair to Being Dead, an endlessly creative indie band.

The three members, Juli Keller, Cody Dosier and Nicole Roman-Johnston, cover an impressive amount of ground on their sophomore album. Sometimes the songs are fragments and sometimes they’re more developed. With male and female vocals they can conjure up an array of styles.

They’re hard to describe, like a bizarre collision between ABBA, Guided by Voices, and Uncle Tupelo. Sometimes they’re kitsch, like the singalong of ‘Rock and Roll Hurts’. Other times they’re fuzzy and lo-fi, like on ‘Firefighters’.

It’s hard to know what to make of Eels, but it’s always interesting.


Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn

Quiet in a World Full of Noise

2024, 7/10
Dawn Richard‘s career has been unpredictable. She’s been part of Danity Kane, worked with P Diddy on his Last Train to Paris record, and released a series of solo concept LPs. She’s now reunited with Spencer Zahn, for a second duo record.

Zahn provides atmospheric soundscapes that recall Brian Eno’s ambient records. It’s even more pared back than 2022’s Pigments, barely more than a whisper at times.

Sometimes it’s hard for individual songs to register in this context. The title track feels like a statement of purpose, with Richard declaring “I want to be the quiet in a world full of noise”. There are sometimes beautiful arrangements, like the woodwinds that close ‘Oceans Past’. But it’s less immersive and creative than Pigments.

Richard’s usually restless, so it feels like she’s repeating herself on Quiet.

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6 Comments

    • Thanks for listening. I liked those three records enough to feature them when I could have easily skipped them, since 2024 is done.

  1. I missed all of these albums. I did include Father John Misty’s predecessor “Chloë and the Next 20th Century” in my weekly music review at the time that album came out. Based on the songs you highlighted here, I’d mostly be interested in hearing more from Tillman’s “Mahashmashana” and Being Dead’s “Eels.”

  2. I like Being Dead and Father John Misty…I get a George Harrison feel from Father John Misty for some reason…I like it.

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