My Tumultuous Week with Age of Adz

My Tumultuous Week with Age of Adz

When Sufjan Stevens' new album, Age of Adz, leaked last Saturday, I was initially quite disappointed. I found the songs to be cluttered and melodically barren; the lush orchestration of his earlier masterful albums was abandoned for glitchy and, I think its fair to say, rather obnoxious electronics. Sure there were traditional Sufjanic elements at play, but they were buried under a snow storm of chaos, as if the entire album had been remixed by an overly-enthusiastic amateur fanboy.

I will be the first to admit that I was wrong. Completely wrong. I'm not going to sit here and tell you this album is a "grower" - I simply missed it. In fact, Age of Adz could very well be the album of the year. It's a complex masterpiece of composition, overflowing with emotion and existential angst.

Over the past year we all rolled our eyes (or wiped tears from them) as we read interviews with arguably the most important musician of our generation, bemoaning his creative crises:

"I’m wondering: what am I doing? What is a song even? I’m questioning, what’s the point of a song? Is a song antiquated? Does it have any power any more? The format itself — a narrative song with accompaniment — is really beyond me now."

One can speculate whether these musings had direct affect on Adz or not, but if the songs on the album could be described in one word it would be "power." Probably the most jarring moment in the more than hour long record comes in "I Want to Be Well", a song that begins with Sufjan's standard whimsical air, only to deteriorate into a cycle of Stevens passionately declaring he's not "fucking around" - a phrase that certainly caused a few of the troubadour's more faithful fans to spew their morning cheerios across the kitchen table. It is this raw energy that really pushes Sufjan to new heights. His soul, previously buried under myriad layers of history, narrative, biblical allegories and the like, finally makes an appearance - and it's a bit more tortured than we ever imagined.

Yes, Sufjan is singing in the first person. In this context, the chaotic, unnerving electronics that float through the album take on a whole new meaning. They are the loose edges, the "distractions" that he warns us so eagerly to avoid on the 25-minute album closer, "Impossible Soul" ("Don't be distracted, don't be distracted now.") On a far less metaphorical level, his fusion of whimsical folk pop (that he nearly single-handedly pioneered back in the 2000's) with pulsing aquatic electronics creates an utterly unique and original sound. After several listens, the once prominent bleeps and whistles begin to melt into the overall aural texture and the layers become less annoying and much more like the wall of sound they are meant to be.

The best songs, "Vesuvius", "All for Myself", "I Want to Be Well", and "Impossible Soul", close out the album with beautifully arranged melodic structures recalling the atmosphere of Michigan and even some of his more medieval Christmas arrangements. It's a stretch of music that could easily stand with some of the best records of the past few decades.

It's hard to say how this album will be accepted critically. In many ways, it shares similarities with Kanye West's 808 and Heartbreak; both albums stand out as bold reinterpretations of the artists' styles and musical tendencies. Its an album meant for your full attention. Highly Recommended.

[mp3]: Sufjan Stevens :: I Walked
[mp3]: Sufjan Stevens :: Too Much



Listen to Age of Adz in its entirety over at NPR
Pre-Order the album HERE
Age of Adz is out 10.12.10 on Asthmatic Kitty.