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Five years removed from Illinois, his magnum opus and his last properfull-length album, Sufjan Stevens made an inauspicious return thissummer with All Delighted People, a stealth-released, hour-long online EP that played tohis worst tendencies. What followed was a minor critical backlash against asongwriter who just a year earlier publications like Paste had lauded asreleasing one of the albums of the decade. Though that backlash may have been drivenby critics who were never much on the Sufjan bandwagon to begin withand was likely a response in part to the breathless accolades the songwriter had been showeredwith during 2010's end-of-the-decade retrospectivesAll Delighted People gave Stevens’detractors the perfect case in point: a long-winded, hour-long EP riddled withpedantries.
Perhaps that EP’s greatest sin, though, was its familiarity. It methodically recycled most of Illinois’ signatures, supporting charges that Stevens was a one-trick pony. If nothing else, Stevens’ new full-lengthalbum The Age of Adz should help put those charges to rest, even if it won't win him many converts. It’s the radical overhaulof his sound that after All Delighted People even Stevens’ biggest fans couldn’thave predicted, an ambitious gamble from a musician who seemed incapable of taking such a risk.
Adz digitalizes Stevens' soft-toned orchestral folk. The lavish, restless arrangements and we-are-the-world choruses remain,but his trusty banjo has been largely supplanted by drum machines, synthesizers,glitch-pop hooks and electro-soul grooves. The record is busy and all over the place,often recalling Prince not only in its superficial funkiness, but also its eclecticism.The horn arrangements alone draw from baroque pop, Afro-beat and monstermovies, sometimes all at once.
As drastic as the reinvention is, it’s not without precedent. Of Montreal hasbeen drawn to this kind of funk for years, and when Stevens warbles inAuto-Tune on closer “Impossible Souls,” he sounds less like a pioneerthan Justin Vernon. But like Stevens’ best work, the Age of Adz is distinct in its restless energy and its magnificent scope. Few of his indie peers are making albums this massive, and unlike Stevens' post-Illinois stumbles, this time the grandeur is earned, achieved without cheap sentimentality and proven pleasantries.
Perhaps that EP’s greatest sin, though, was its familiarity. It methodically recycled most of Illinois’ signatures, supporting charges that Stevens was a one-trick pony. If nothing else, Stevens’ new full-lengthalbum The Age of Adz should help put those charges to rest, even if it won't win him many converts. It’s the radical overhaulof his sound that after All Delighted People even Stevens’ biggest fans couldn’thave predicted, an ambitious gamble from a musician who seemed incapable of taking such a risk.
Adz digitalizes Stevens' soft-toned orchestral folk. The lavish, restless arrangements and we-are-the-world choruses remain,but his trusty banjo has been largely supplanted by drum machines, synthesizers,glitch-pop hooks and electro-soul grooves. The record is busy and all over the place,often recalling Prince not only in its superficial funkiness, but also its eclecticism.The horn arrangements alone draw from baroque pop, Afro-beat and monstermovies, sometimes all at once.
As drastic as the reinvention is, it’s not without precedent. Of Montreal hasbeen drawn to this kind of funk for years, and when Stevens warbles inAuto-Tune on closer “Impossible Souls,” he sounds less like a pioneerthan Justin Vernon. But like Stevens’ best work, the Age of Adz is distinct in its restless energy and its magnificent scope. Few of his indie peers are making albums this massive, and unlike Stevens' post-Illinois stumbles, this time the grandeur is earned, achieved without cheap sentimentality and proven pleasantries.
