Kevin Bronson on September 1st, 2020

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Comedian, comic actor and podcast host Tim Heidecker is adept at eliciting laughs and chuckles, driving home his pointed observations with absurdist humor. Much of his music has followed suit. Put his 2017 album of Trump songs in a time capsule for 20 years from now. Count 2016’s “In Glendale” as the wryest of wry L.A. albums. Even last year’s breakup album “What the Brokenhearted Do …” wasn’t a real breakup album.

As its title suggests, Heidecker’s new album “Fear of Death” (out Sept. 25 via Spacebomb Records) is no “Laugh-In.” “I didn’t know that this record was going to be so focused on death when I was writing it,” Heidecker said in announcing the record. “It took a minute for me to stand back and look at what I was talking about to realize that, yes, I am now a middle-aged man and my subconscious is screaming at me: ‘You are getting old, dude! You are not going to live forever! Put down that cheeseburger!’”

“I don’t want to leave the house again / No more partying / I learned all I am gonna learn,” he sings in the title track, a rootsy, ’60s/’70s-styled jam in which he concludes “The fear of death is keeping me alive.” He’s backed on the song by Natalie Mering, aka Weyes Blood, who also co-wrote and sings on the album’s second single, the agnostic hymn “Nothing.”

Mering is part of a dream team that worked with Heidecker on the album — included were Drew Erickson (Jonathan Wilson, Dawes), the Lemon Twigs’ Brian and Michael D’Addario, Jonathan Rado and a 14-piece string ensemble arranged by Trey Pollard (Foxygen, Bedouine, The Waterboys, Natalie Prass).

||| Stream: “Fear of Death” and “Nothing”