The new Father John Misty album, Chloë and the Next 20th Century, is a tour through the songwriting songbook of the 20th century — delivered in a fashion that always sounds quintessentially Misty.

The key to the album is the closing track, the second half of the album title, “The Next 20th Century.” Josh Tillman takes on a distressingly claustrophobic tone as he acknowledges our precarious position on the edge of an apocalypse: "Now things keep getting worse while staying so eerily the same." At the very end, he notes that if the worst traits of the 20th century are repeating themselves around us, we can at least grasp to the idea of 20th century songwriting tropes repeating themselves, too, in the form of love songs. Suddenly, the songs that came before snap into focus, and it’s an invitation to immediately revisit them in this context.

Chloë and the Next 20th Century embraces myriad songwriting styles that are never pinned down to a single sound or concept, a series of disparate stories and flourishes. "Funny Girl," famously a 1968 Barbra Streisand vehicle, alludes to both showtunes and show business tunes. "Goodbye Mr. Blue" tells a story of a sliver of human (and feline) existence that would make Jimmy Webb proud. It also feels like a parable for what it is to live and love while also knowing everyone we know will one day pass away.

"(Everything But) Her Love" captures the sound of Southern California. While "Olvidado (Otra Momento)" seems a bit cringe-worthy on the surface, it's a sly harkening back to the days when lounge music inexplicably took over the pop charts. Opener "Chloë" is so overt in its influences, I'm surprised that "ragtime" didn't begin trending on Twitter the day the album was released.

The record sounds fantastic, as Tillman has enlisted Jonathan Wilson to help build convincing emulations of all these different sounds and eras. As a listener who loves string arrangements while not understanding any of the craft making them effective, I'm in heaven listening to this album, and would happily enjoy it even if it were instrumentals.

This is Tillman's fifth album under the Father John Misty moniker, and it's yet another strong entry to his catalog. As with every FJM release, some songs are designed to be spun more than others, but everything here is worthwhile, and further cements him as one of the 21st century's great songwriters and performers.