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Musically and lyrically, The Age of Adz is exhilarating, challenging, and thought-provoking.
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Tt's refreshing to hear him so candid, even if that forthrightness is festooned by enough bells and whistles to wake the dead.
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The Age of Adz builds on his previous dabblings in electronica by integrating the ideas he has clearly been stewing with the aspects of his work so dear to fans.
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There are some beautiful moments in amongst the manic electronic experimentation, but Stevens' strength as a songwriter lies primarily in his sincerity, his ability to express intimacy without appearing cloying or saccharin.
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Casual fans looking to prolong the artful mellow of the gently plucked art-folk and strutting orchestral pop the precious singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens laid down on previous records might be lulled into a false calm as this record opens.
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Jan 11, 2011The combination is ethereal and transcendent.
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Dec 21, 2010Where he used be be so proficient at letting us hear the sound of his sad, sad heart, the directionless elliptical clutter that defines The Age of Adz just sounds to me like he's manufacturing an idea of what a sad heart might sound like. What's worse, it sounds self-indulgent.
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Oct 22, 2010Sufjan's proficiency with larger-than-life arrangements has always been one of his strongest qualities as a musician, and across The Age of Adz he wields that proficiency, brazenly, like a kind of weapon.
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After all those years that people remarked and possibly, tried to shut him out, Stevens has returned with what just might be the best music he has ever crafted.
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With such brilliantly explicit expositions of death, loneliness and faith in his words, there's more than enough here to soften the blow about that other thing he was supposed to do.
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The Age of Adz is not an unqualified success; occasionally it does feel like a little too much, and until the dust has settled it is difficult to say where it will sit in his discography as a whole.
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Stevens inspiration or jumping off point for The Age of Adz was outsider artist Royal Robertson, and, much like Robertson's artwork, the themes in the album vacillate between the mundane and heartfelt and surreal and grandiose.
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The Age of Adz complements rather than distracts from the heartrending melodies and ambitious orchestration underneath.
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Dec 23, 2010Stevens ventures widely on this 85-minute disc to find the best way to express what turn out to be basic home truths.
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In some ways the change in direction makes you feel closer to him than ever – especially if you can digest Impossible Soul, a 25-minute dissection of failed love at the end of this already lofty 75-minute charmer.
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It's what you hope for from your favorite artists in your best moments -- evolution, a little difficulty and, especially, something new.
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As important questions about music's worth in the age of free continue to swirl around him, Sufjan's still combating instant-gratification culture the best way he knows how.
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Each pass cements that Stevens has done the impossible yet again: He's released another album that's both genre-defining and genre-defying.
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Q MagazineDec 20, 2010Dazzling with its intensity, the futuristic splice of swooping symphonics and grimy looped percussion once again sets Stevens in his own orbit. [Dec 2010, p.114]
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It's a semiconcept record, using work by the artist Royal Robertson as a springboard for music that evokes a visionary psyche.
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What makes The Age of Adz an exception rather than some blatant hat-tip to those artists is Stevens's quirky trademarks.
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Stevens sated his jam-band jones in a borderline amusing way on August's All Delighted People EP, but here all the engine-revving too often feels lazy, especially considering how vibrantly he embraces the album's fresh musical direction elsewhere.
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If the point of music is for us to take something from it - whether it be an emotional response or a change in mindset or any sort of inspiration - then The Age Of Adz is the most selfless album ever recorded, and Sufjan is the most giving composer.
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As an expression of a restless artist trying to stretch his own limits, The Age Of Adz is simultaneously admirable and exhausting.
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You emerge from the other side of it glad not just that Stevens continued to make music, but that he chose to follow his muse to such a radical, potentially divisive place.
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The Age of Adz is an outrageously fun and messy masterpiece.
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Under The RadarOct 25, 2010The Age of Adz sonically recalls Enjoy Your Rabbit, where Stevens indulged in more electronics. In other words, neither sounds much like Illinois, with all of its sprightly tunes and exclamation points. [Fall 2010, p.63]
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What Sufjan did in The Age of Adz is so beautiful and rich and complicated; he ended up telling the story of what life is for so many people who just end up turning the gears of the larger machine.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 164 out of 183
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Mixed: 9 out of 183
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Negative: 10 out of 183
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Oct 13, 2010
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Oct 13, 2010
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Oct 19, 2010