Javelin (studio album) by Sufjan Stevens

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Album Rating: 82.70
(827/10)

06.10.2023

Sufjan Stevens (UK): Javelin

1.Goodbye Evergreen. 79
2.A Running Start. 73
3.Will Anybody Ever Love Me? 94
4.Everything That Rises. 75
5.Genuflecting Ghost. 75
6.My Red Little Fox. 86
7.So You Are Tired. 91
8.Javelin (To Have And To Hold). 79
9.Shït Talk. 95
10.There’s A World. 80

Creo que, a veces, las expectativas que nosotros mismos nos generamos sobre algo terminan jugando en nuestra contra, deteriorando nuestra experiencia... lamentablemente eso fue lo que me pasó con este álbum. Pero no me malentiendan, "Javelin" es bueno y va de menos a más, solo que no me enganchó lo suficiente como para decir ¡wow!

canciones favoritas:
*Everything That Rises
*Genuflecting Ghost
*Shit Talk.

English review:
I think that sometimes the expectations we generate for ourselves about something end up working against us, deteriorating our experience... unfortunately that's what happened to me with this album. But don't get me wrong, "Javelin" is good and goes from strength to strength, it just didn't hook me enough to say wow!

His best work since Carrie & Lowell. Delicate, powerful and heartwrenching. AOTY candidate, to me.

Excellent. Poor guy.

For me, Sufjan’s thirteenth studio offering perfectly matches in mood its autumnal release date. Sonically, it is almost ‘folklore’-esque at times and I found it to be the perfect musical accomplice for making apple crumble during one cold afternoon late in October. This quality sits in juxtaposition with the emotive, personal lyric writing, conveying the trauma he’s experienced during the last year or so. Overall, I think this contrast is what makes for a very good album, if not an all time classic.

This sounds like an amalgamation of several of his albums to date. You can hear the sounds of Carrie and Lowell, Illinois, Age of Adz, and Seven Swans easily throughout the whole album. This is really his first real album since Seven Swans in his early work where he hasn’t taken an entirely new sonic route for a new album. It’s very good but doesn’t have the originality and intense creativity of his past work. It’s a great album but far from his best but I’ll give him plenty of leeway considering all he’s been through recently. All love to Sufjan :)

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From HoldenM 10/06/2023 22:51

Having listened to it thrice today, and knowing the impetus for the record, Javelin stands as Sufjan Stevens's most open-hearted and devastating work to date, even more so than the thorny beauty of his magnificent Carrie & Lowell. Elegiac, wounded, and life-affirming through and through, Javelin is characteristically meditative and soulful, while crystalizing the folktronica sensibilities that he's wrestled with over the years into its most moving configurations yet, and that, despite its weight, is still so warm and inviting. One of the best from one of the best ever to do it.