Art dealing with the breakdown of society can be quite shocking. Josh Tillman (aka Father John Misty), however, revels in the decadence of culture, morality – the disintegration of everything, really – like it’s the sweetest thing in the world. His music can sound dark, cynical, even conceited at times; but the results are always poignant and often sonically beautiful.

His most recent effort, Chloe and the next 20^and Century, takes the subject of decomposition and flies away with it. For all the smoky alleys and dark parlors it conjures up, the record is one of Father John Misty’s most upbeat and understated releases to date. At first glance, it’s an album about brokenness and love, and it delivers these concepts via a transporting journey through the cavernous jazz of the 1930s and 50s, and the folk of the 60s and 70s. Filled to the brim with modest nocturnes, lounge, bossa nova and even circus music jams, it’s a late-night stumble through the backdoors of craze, trippy layers of history and sometimes-surprising musical influences. by Tillman.

Calling this record “hopeful” can be confusing on first listen. The opening track “Chloë” is about the downfall of a celebrity (or a celebrity in general), while the closing track evokes a group of Nazis performing at a father-daughter dance. Dark, yes, but Father John Misty’s records have always delved into searing worlds of self-destruction: there’s psychedelia and the intense self-perception of someone with nothing left to lose. Fear Pleasure; the measured mortality of God’s Favorite Customer; and of course, Pure comedyit is observation room on a barren landscape, inspired by Hieronymus Bosch, of self-indulgence and total annihilation of society.

Chloe, on the other hand, is building a warm underground club in the wastelands of our world. There are songs about lovers who remain strangers and stunned fools who fall in love with each other, and musically, it’s elegant. The entire record carries a startling confidence in affection, survival, and making ends meet.

The album contains a real miseryespecially in the last of the two titular songs, “The Next 20th Century.” “Come build your graveyard on our graveyards / But you won’t kill death that way / I don’t know about you, but I’ll take love songs if this century is here to stay,” Tillman sings on a western prog tune.The gloom continues in tracks that tackle topics like overworked parents and radiant but blemished icons. But the whole album has an authentic vibe, an image of Tillman walking or smiling through the croon, in full character mode, still with love on his brain.

the nostalgic record marries Tillman’s adept lyricism with voluminous references to an era steeped in excess, wealth and other Fitzgerald-esque elements. The repetition of history and the dissolution of everything remains in the foreground, but love remains even more centralized. Embattled and sleazy love, another suspicious sign of hope.

The disc sings and quivers, followed by magnificent flowering horns and strings. Father John Misty’s instrumentation has always been on point, and here the immaculate production of Jonathan Wilson and the band are astounding. They capture an orchestrated score well-suited to each song, as if Tillman and Wilson are arranging the ideal feng shui for each track’s living quarters.

Despite the jazz age signifiers, Chloe is largely a psychedelic record, from the “Mr. Kite” waltz from “(Everything But) Her Love”, with its flute rondo outro, to the phantom tremolo of “Kiss Me (I Loved You)”. This last track is about a character who wants to get back together with his ex while his smuggler lover is stuck. It sounds sleazy and desperate, but paired with a jazzy solemnity and a sense that life can be sweeter than bitter.

The above “Chloë”, the other half of the titular songs, offers the story of the downfall of a superstar through the eyes of a smitten protagonist, against the wishes of his family. Tillman’s lyrics quickly unfold in a swing, “The more they abhor you / the more I adore you,with mentions of some waiver of prescribed medications and a black soul.

The album’s seemingly antiquated tropes of Cold War depression and paranoia enter the modern era via references to Benzos, Batman, and David Letterman. Much more than a vignette of love and war, Chloe is a conscious character study of how some things never change, told through the eyes of one of the 21 the most austere but talented pop songwriters of the century. His coy point of view ties together the evils of the Jazz Age with the endless Information Age in a timely, even exhausting way. Or maybe it’s just exhausting to watch the flames rise.