Having recently completed a 2000-word essay about mankind’s mistakes, Tillman extends the theme here. Take the jazz-inflected title track: "The comedy of man starts like this/Our brains are way too big for our mothers’ hips/And so Nature, she divines this alternative/We emerge half-formed and hope whoever greets us on the other end/Is kind enough to fill us in/And, babies, that’s pretty much how it’s been ever since."
Elsewhere, he ruminates on both the divine and desperate, all the time proving how glorious lamentation can sound in the right hands.
• Father John Misty. Pure Comedy. Sub Pop.
• Four stars (out of five)
Single download: Leaving LA
For those who like: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen
— Shane Gilchrist
