Sufjan Stevens

Artist: Sufjan Stevens

Album: The Age of Adz

Label: Asthmatic Kitty

Drum machines. Synthesizer bleeps. Electro-noise, spacey echoed vocals. A banjo deficiency, a sprinkling of obscenities. And what the— is that Auto-Tune? What is this, and where's the new Sufjan Stevens album we've been expecting?

Fear not, dear listener. The Age of Adz, Stevens' first proper LP in five years, is probably going to be a bit confusing, initially. After all, this is from the man who once pledged to record an album dedicated to each of the 50 States (but only managed Michigan in 2003 and Illinois in 2005) and in 2007 created a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway." Anything approaching straightforward would have been, let's admit, highly disappointing.

So instead of sticking with what's already worked and cranking out more austere folk tunes about the Transfiguration of Christ or orchestral ruminations on the Blackhawk War, Stevens offers up an album that manages to be both exploratory and familiar, mysterious while comprehensible and, most importantly, intensely enjoyable.

The Age of Adz sometimes feels like you’re being carried to a different country, armed with a Lonely Planet guidebook and a familiar pair of comfy shoes. Already comfortable with the local dialect - the way Stevens' vocal melodies rise at the end of his phrases, the unmistakable inflections of his vulnerable voice, the personal confessions in his lyrics - we're set free to revel in the new electronic sonic landscapes he creates.

It's tempting to wonder at first if Stevens merely aspired to follow the fashionable trends in contemporary indie/alternative music. Suddenly the synthesizer is back en vogue; everyone seems to be going electronic these days. His use of Auto-Tune in "Impossible Soul," albeit brief, seems like an approving nod to an irritating trend in popular mainstream music. Is one of the pioneers of the folk and banjo revivals in indie pop over the past decade too spent to do anything but follow popular fads like so many fleeting indie critic darlings? (See: Matthew Dear, Neon Indian, Holy Fuck, Greatest Hits.)

In short, no. The lush arrangements of Illinois were bewildering at first listen, too, losing us in their Midwestern-tinged sonic wonderland, but a second or third listen through revealed their fragile, sympathetic documentation of historic figures and personal confessions. The Age of Adz is really more similar to Stevens' past work than it is different; it simply requires a little bit of investment on the part of the listener.

Yes, the prodigious use of echo delay on his vocals and electro glitch-beat synth sounds might be jarring at first. The sci-fi movie sound effects that introduce "Too Much," for example, or the random staccatos of noise punctuating the sprawling opus "Impossible Soul" are a little challenging.

But these are good things. The more you play the album, the more it grows on you, and the revelation sinks in that Stevens is doing what he's always done - taking instruments or noises we think we've heard before, turning them upside down, and making them his own. What he's done for the banjo and various woodwinds on previous albums he's simply done again, just with very different instruments.

The overwhelming sense is that of Stevens' evolution as a musician, building upon his talents and flexing his creative muscles; hearing him take risks with new sounds, and succeed, is supremely gratifying and enjoyable to listen to. One of his greatest strengths has always been his ability to stay grounded even while engineering a cacophony of sound - whether it's the electronic noise here, or the self-performed orchestras from previous efforts. And that's exactly what he maintains; at the core of every song, his signature, masterful songwriting remains intact.

The Age of Adz isn't full of the quiet self-portrait acoustic ballads prevalent in many fan favorites. There's no bedroom performance atmosphere of "For the Widows in Paradise…" or "Holland" present here. But "Futile Devices" and "Now That I'm Older" are great examples of that classic intimate balladry in the new Sufjan Stevens era. "I Walked" is probably the best example of a quintessential Stevens track given new instrumentation. Like so many others on Adz, he muses on a failed or difficult relationship, critically evaluating his own role - "I couldn't bear that it's me / It's my fault" – while layers of percussive static and rolling backing vocals lead to a dramatic conclusion. His penchant for coupling humbled words with ornate instrumentation has never been stronger, and this contrast is what continues to make his work so compelling.

Ultimately, Stevens is doing exactly what we love him for, and that is making wildly inventive music of the kind no one else has thought to attempt. Where earlier works revealed his influences, the flavor of Vince Guaraldi's piano in Michigan's "Flint," for example, The Age of Adz genuinely sounds like Stevens has matured to the point where he's found all the inspiration he needs in himself. The result is a sprawling effort that somehow manages more creativity, more grandeur, and more originality than before.