Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear (Album Review)
Wednesday, 11 February 2015
Written by Huw Baines
Love songs are the backbone of pop music. They’re also mawkish, insincere and calculating. Father John Misty’s ‘I Love You, Honeybear’ is a response to that. The follow up to ‘Fear Fun’ is vulnerable, warts-and-all honest, very funny, a little jaded and unashamedly, inescapably romantic. It’s about loving someone who hates the same stuff you do.
Here, Josh Tillman is less mushroom-fuelled crooner and more open book troubadour, skipping from style to style when the mood takes him. His wife, Emma, is the album’s muse and his harshest, most valued critic. She convinced him to lose the self-conscious stuff and make a ‘beautiful’ album. In that sense, it’s like love itself: only great if you ditch the preconceptions.
Much like its predecessor, ‘...Honeybear’ is a rich tapestry of anecdotes, but this time around the fantastical elements have been toned down a little. In their place are bare-bones sentiments delivered with a sharp tongue.
While barflys, technology and self-involved one-night stands get short shrift, there are moments where the realities of giving yourself to another person are presented with genuine empathy and warmth. “I brought my mother’s depression, you’ve got your father’s scorn and a wayward aunt’s schizophrenia,” sings Tillman on the title track. “But everything is fine. Don’t give in to despair, ‘cause I love you, Honeybear.”
Tillman can’t help but deliver some of his missives in verbose, knowing terms, but that makes the record’s moments of lucidity all the more effective. The best jokes hurt a little, and that principle is applied here. His offhand comments and deflections cloak some deep-seated insecurities and ingrained self-loathing: love is scary as shit and he’s not always great at dealing with it. But, eventually, honesty becomes not the best policy, but the only way forward.
The second line on the album tells of “mascara, blood, ash and cum on the Rorschach sheets where we make love”, while, amid the sweeping, velvet-tux soul of When You’re Smiling and Astride Me, he admits: “I’ve got nothing to hide from you. Kissing my brother in my dreams or finding God knows in my jeans.”
Tillman’s main concession to his freewheeling old ways is the sheer scope of the musical backing. ‘...Honeybear’ swings from teary-eyed balladeering to reflective folk, stopping off for a sludgy stomp on The Ideal Husband and canned laughter on the odd-one-out Bored In The USA. It’s musically as complex as its subject matter, but with familiarity the end result. If we’re put on the spot by True Affection’s analytical streak, then its glimmering disco-soul is reassuring.
Tillman’s latest journey is as vivid and unconventional as his last, but at its heart is an oft-documented, universal insanity. The details are his, but the sentiments could be anyone’s. “You took off early to go cheat your way through film school,” he recalls on Chateau Lobby #4. “You left a note in your perfect script: “Stay as long as you want.” I haven't left your bed since.”
Father John Misty Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Sun February 22 2015 - DUBLIN Whelans
Mon February 23 2015 - GLASGOW King Tuts Wah Wah Hut
Tue February 24 2015 - MANCHESTER Manchester Gorilla
Thu February 26 2015 - LONDON Village Underground
Fri February 27 2015 - LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
Sat February 28 2015 - BRISTOL Thekla
Thu October 29 2015 - LONDON O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire
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