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Sep 24, 2020I was rendered wonderfully weightless by a journey that delivered whole galaxies of nuance in a universal context. Trust me: the force is strong in this one.
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Sep 23, 2020It's simultaneously a distillation of his many trademark sounds while also a massive departure from his previous works. The album demands multiple, active listens, but it's well worth the effort. Hidden beneath its complex layers lies an endless well of new modalities, critical interpretations and potent ideas. ... It's not an album we could have ever expected in 2020, but it is the one we deserve.
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Sep 21, 2020A joyous blend of dumb fun and sonic smarts with the talent that Stevens has been peddling for nearly 20 years to glue them together, this feels a fresh start in a career that didn’t exactly need one. Somehow, a wonderful surprise. Wow.
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Sep 24, 2020The Ascension is one of Sufjan Stevens’ grandest, most ambitious works yet.
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Sep 28, 2020Surpassing the hour mark with some space yet to go, the record provides an expansive canvas for Sufjan to critique the flaws of humanity, at the same time finding room for the inward focus that made his previous offering so compelling.
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Sep 23, 2020The Ascension is a far superior and more ambitious album [than 2010 album The Age Of Adz].
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Oct 6, 2020The Ascension harks back to the heavy electronics of 2010’s Age of Adz but with adroit focus on the themes of existential dread and the quest for meaning with a bounty of angry yet hopeful songs that satisfy melodically and metaphysically.
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Oct 21, 2020The Ascension ranks with Carrie & Lowell as his most personal and affecting work to date.
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Sep 29, 2020“The Ascension” is single-minded, but far from simplistic. Most of Stevens’s new tracks are thickets of counterpoint, dissonance and noises that can be comic or ominous. And he never reduces his messages to preaching or polemic.
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Sep 29, 2020The Ascension bobs along in a meandering sea of drum machine and synth pads, waiting for something to latch on to. It never takes long; Stevens has the ideas and they hit relentlessly, moving on and doubling over before you’ve had half a chance to process them.
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Sep 28, 2020Tthe magnificent Sugar weighs up the power of cliche while seeking its sweet reward; and America recoils in horror from, well, America. But the rest of the album returns to the spiritual and physical passions of previous, myth-heavy Stevens works; his penchant for classical and biblical allusions recalls Bob Dylan’s.
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Sep 25, 2020For all the synthetic otherworldliness, this record is unflinchingly honest in its assessment of the United States as well as a very personal and raw portrait of Steven’s own humanity and fallibility. There’s no dogma, only equivocation.
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Sep 24, 2020With an 80-minute runtime, The Ascension feels overwhelming in its second act. ... But worried as it is, The Ascension isn’t without joy.
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Sep 23, 2020Anxious instrumentals echo the album’s uneasy outlook and fear of the future, and when they combine forces it often makes for an astonishing listen.
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Sep 23, 2020There’s a stunning candour to the lyrics, though it gets a little stodgy in the mid-section and, at 80+ minutes, is a little more verbiage than the typical album. Yet we’re dealing with an untypical songwriter, and the last two tracks are among the best he’s ever written.
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Sep 24, 2020A bloated and often beautiful portrait of political and emotional anxiety that longs for nothing more than to break away from the systems that brought us to this current moment.
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Sep 22, 2020This combination of stripped-back lyricism and expansive musicality contributes to the sense of The Ascension as Stevens’ most plainly spiritual record to date.
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Sep 25, 2020The Ascension is at its best when Sufjan calls forth light in the darkness.
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Sep 25, 2020The Ascension is, by design, kind of a drag: a dark and emotionally distant mood piece whose lyrics rarely touch on the specifics necessary to anchor the music, and whose music is rarely exciting enough to elevate his words. ... The Ascension fares best when Stevens looks inward.
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UncutSep 21, 2020On this sometimes obstinate, sometimes sublime record, Stevens shows he contains multitudes. [Nov 2020, p.24]
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Sep 21, 2020If you like your Sufjan Stevens in neon electronic mode, armed to the teeth with abrasive drum sounds, dive right in — and keep swimming. For anyone more enamored with his folk and chamber-pop records, it may feel like a rude assault to the senses.
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Oct 2, 2020The Ascension, Stevens’ eighth studio album over all, and the follow-up to his highly lauded outing Carrie & Lowell, diminishes the accessibility factor in favor of a more amorphous imprint, one that finds all manner of effects and an ever-constant shift in sounds that drift through practically every selection.
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MojoSep 23, 2020Both beguiling and frustrating, The Ascension is complex, bold and oddly lovable. [Nov 2020, p.89]
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Sep 21, 2020While Stevens often reaches great heights on The Ascension, he almost as often seems to get lost in his big ideas.
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Sep 28, 2020With few exceptions, Ascension is channeled into one energy level, despite the variety of sounds. It’s busy lethargy: too hive-like to be soothing, too sedated to be invigorating.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 65 out of 75
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Mixed: 5 out of 75
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Negative: 5 out of 75
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Sep 27, 2020It's a mess of an album. Just nothing like his other work and full of annoying sounds.
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Sep 27, 2020
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Sep 25, 2020Sufjan has made a banger once again and I am happy for it once again in five years.