Despite releasing proper LP’s every 5 years since 2005, Sufjan Stevens never stops. He puts out many music in the period between albums, and the last five years weren’t the exception. This fact makes you wonder how he creates a piece of work as coherent and accomplished as his past records, while working in many other things as well. Of course, this prolific artistic output is also related, albeit not explicitly.

Sufjan is meticulous as he is creative and you can find discreet traces of the new sound he showcases in his 8th album, The Ascension, in several singles recorded before it. Even in the tour promoting its predecessor, Carrie & Lowell. However, this new LP is all the more compelling because of its big differences with that one, and how Sufjan uses his approach to new ideas to convey the urgency of his thoughts.

The Ascension is an overwhelming piece of 80 minutes of music. A wide-range mix of electronic arrangements, using the studio as an instrument and placing Stevens’ voice in top with grandiose effects and dramatic exposure. Starting with ‘Make Me An Offer I Cannot Refuse’, The Ascension proves to be a very different experiment for an artist that tends to expand his music as he goes. The song in particular is ambient-tinged with Stevens’ processed falsetto gliding melodically through a sea of synths before imploding on itself. A very good indicator of how this album is going to play with quiet-loud dynamics that have tinges of IDM that can suddenly burst into cosmic levels of electronic euphoria.

Next is ‘Run Away With Me’, a more subdued track with a beautiful melody at its core. The main synth line is supported by an steady electronic beat with Sufjan’s echoic voice surrounding everything while he pleads to the subject of his words one that to love that person is everything he needs. There’s a sense of hope in Stevens’ words when he sings: “And I will show you rapture, a new horizon”. After this track comes one of the most danceable and best musical moments 2020 has given us: ‘Video Game’. This retro-sounding song packs an unforgettable synth melody while it questions societal standards. “I don’t care if everybody is into it, I don’t care if it’s a popular refrain” Sufjan calmly states before repeating in the addictive chorus that “I don’t wanna play your video game”, all this while the beat inevitably provokes the movement of your hips.

It’s safe to say that The Ascension carries itself strongly at the beginning, but referencing again its cosmic proportions, its middle ground definitely has many diferent directions and approaches to sounds and its nothing short of an interstellar trip. The first middling moment comes in ‘Lamentations’ which somewhat succumbs to the album’s ambition. Of course there’s the poignant electronic explosions in the choruses of both ‘Tell Me You Love Me’ and ‘Landslide’ both major highlights. In the former is impossible not to feel Sufjan’s emotional reach when he claims: “I’m gonna love you!” and in the latter when he tells his love interest ‘You got me caught in a landslide!’ the way he produced the last word feels exactly like you’re caught in one.

I can’t help but feel an archetypal ‘space’ music influence in this tracks. Think of Grimes’ last album, something like a futuristic, sci-fi soundtrack focus. But the thing with this album is that in the other side of the starship is Sufjan, a devoted Christian himself questioning his beliefs, feelings and reality, and at times the music itself can be distracting. There’s the instrumental codas of ‘Ativan’ or ‘Death Star’, both tracks that pack a lot in their runtime and you’re left with a mild feeling of inconclusion. There’s quirky electronics that trace back to Sufjan’s last effort of this kind, 2010’s The Age of Adz and there’s meditating long-winding moments like ‘Die Happy’ that serves like a robotic mantra, but a very deep one at that.

There’s a reason I’m publishing this review more than a month after the release of The Ascension: the album takes its toll and it was after several listenings that I started dissecting its details and overwhelming combination of ideas. But it turned out to be greatly rewarding and it will always be hard to fully enjoy an album of this magnitude at first listen. Specially if you take in account that this one in particular, saves some of the best for the ending.

The first of the last three tracks, ‘Sugar’, released as a single, comes here with a longer duration but losing none of its spark. With an extended instrumental intro Sufjan gives that track a more satisfying build-up, making the carnal urgency in its chorus quite compelling. Next comes the title track, one of the most beautiful songs Sufjan Stevens has crafted, and that’s saying something. The song focuses on the sudden realization that no matter what he does Sufjan is unable to change the world as it is. Its beautiful chord progression would’ve fitted perfectly in pretty much any previous release from the multifaceted artist. The vocal harmonies, which reach for the stars, hover in the background while Sufjan painfully sings: “But now it strikes me far too late again/That I was asking far too much of everyone around me/That I should answer for myself as the ascension falls upon me”. A confounding thought that really puts into question the songwriter’s focus on others, concluding that in order to be free he has to care for himself first.

One of the most astounding decisions Sufjan took about the album was making its closer, the 10-minute powerful statement ‘America’, the first single from The Ascension. But, now it makes sense, because is its major statement, one of the foundational reasons of Sufjan Stevens’ stressed musings throughout the record: his home country and the turmoil its people is currently living in. The track is instrumentally textured, with wide-reaching synth lines and thunderous beats with the blazing multi-vocal chorus chanting: “Don’t do to me what you did to America!”. The music grows itself out until it reaches a deserved coda of cascading keyboards. One could say there was no more adequate ending to the album.

And what an album. The Ascension is a strong statement in the way artistic directions are redirected when nobody is expecting it. Sufjan Stevens, as mentioned, is a prolific artist but he saves the best for his proper LPs and this one is no exception. Yes, it takes a while to sink in, literally, and there’s some weak moments, but it is definitely another color in this musical palette the Michigan-born songwriter has build for more than 20 years. An album worthy of your time (and my first vinyl purchase) that is equal parts the unfettered expression of Stevens’ troubled mind and his own musical exploration. Quite an interstellar trip and a journey that I can easily make until 2025.