Words being futile deices ...

The Age of Adz is one that seemed to have come and gone too soon. A highly anticipated outing that didn't manage to garner very much cohesive discussion long after the point of release. A dramatic re-conceptualization of compositional aesthetic that would divide fans of 'Jan's earlier output, it got past front lines fairly discreetly. Whether or not we're listening, it sounds as though this album is, perhaps, one of the few singing songs of this age. On Adz Stevens subjects his inspiration for each song  to a rigorous emotional process which, depending on song length, can travel the roads from health to disease, hope to disillusionment, madness to sanity, descent to transcendence and immaculate conception to human deception. No one song is spared from this programmatic display of self-reflection except for perhaps the extended nostalgic gesture that is tranquil centrepiece 'Now That I'm Older'. At the other end of the spectrum, the album closer, perhaps the longest Stevens track to date at this time, is the 25 minute epic 'Impossible Soul'. If there is one criticism I've heard of the album more than once it is how the songs struggle to stand on their own, however, as somerevieweroranother put it, the completely self-contained masterpiece 'has more good ideas than some careers'. The song sounds like an involved document of or revelation from the events occurring up to and during the writing and recording of the album and manages to cram in a diversity of musical styles achieved by few before him. Whether it's the T Pain-styled auto-tune breakdown, the sped-up skronking no-wave guitar solo or those ominously disco horn and string lines, Stevens packs this epic track with the musical equivalent of the confusion he'd been experiencing in the throes of disease months prior to recording. It is this type of emotional chaos that this album captures so well and that makes it relevant in an age where digital externalizing of one's feelings may be giving rise to more detached and transient experiences of our world. In any one of these songs there is a simultaneous expression of love, joyousness, sadness, anger and fear that makes this one of Sufjan's most compelling endeavours. 

Get Right With The Lord