New album is brilliant btw and just what me and the Mrs. needed in a very difficult week.
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Oh god, I feel so sorry for him. Not sure it its intrusive so wonāt post the link, but I read his partnerās obituary and he sounds like a wonderful man.
This album is fantastic. In some ways it feels his most mature - a sonic sumnation of all his outputs and with a weary kinda heartbreak that nonetheless feels has a kind of āwe must go onā feel. I felt that on first listen without seeing his post (I actually thought it was about a tumultous relationship that was still going on). Knowing the truth now only makes that more meaningful.
I absolutely adore having Javelin (To Have and to Hold) before Shit Talk. Such evocative imagery and nice to have a simpler song as a bit of a sonic palette cleanser. Very well sequenced.
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Feel well bad about posting this now. I take it back!
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Oh this is a very beautiful album, even more so given the context 
but as a standalone piece of work too. Feels like a natural companion piece to C&L, flows really well, has the right blend of light and shade. Sucks you in from the intake of breath and the first chords of the first song. Aw Sufjan 
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Yeh, this is really excellent. Probably more to say when Iāve properly absorbed the lyrics but it sounds beautiful and agree that it flows really well. Vibe-wise it feels somewhere between Illinois and C&L and comes across as a latish career retrospective in a really great way. So sad to read above all of the context and everything heās been through - pretty remarkable that he can still put something like this out amongst all of that
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Listened to the start of the album in a record shop here in Tokyo and thought āooh, this is a change of soundā. Turned out I was using the machine wrong and it was actually the start of an ambient folk compilation.
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Going to a record shop in Tokyo and popping on the headphones to listen to the new Sufjan album is so unbelievably main character
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literally me. except I was wearing trousers.
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Not gonna pretend to have any informed thoughts after one listen, but still not sure Iāll ever quite fall for his stuff. Just doesnāt quite click, somehow
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A heart of stone
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Hasnāt clicked with me at all, but that has more to do with me moving on from his work than the work itself. Loved discovering him on Seven Swans and his show at Shepherds Bush Empire on the Illinois tour blew me away, but his strengths that once drew me towards his work now leaves me cold. His musings on love and devotion simply does nothing for me anymore.
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Feel sad for you - heās still incredible 
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There are parts of this Iām really liking. Itās a stronger, more consistent and less exhausting album than The Ascension, and the collab albums heās made over the last few years. It feels like a mash up of Adz and C&L, particularly re-C&L it feels like he is trying to paint with the same kind of emotional colours, but on a different canvas (if that makes sense). Having listened a good half dozen times, Iād say Iām not a huge fan of how itās been recorded. A lot of it sounds quite thin. I also think there are only two real contenders in terms of songs that can stand up with the aforementioned Adz & C&L, which I think are the pinnacle of his career (Shit Talk and So You Are Tired). I think itāll age well.
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I tend to dip in and out of Sufjan but I am really liking Javelin.
Maybe said this before but I should really give this a listen based on the comments that continue to come inā¦since Carrie & Lowell is the Sufjan album that has resonated the most with me, along with some key tracks from Illinois and The Age of Adz. Havenāt listened to anything heās released since C&L.
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Quite enjoyed on first listen, had more of a (more subdued) Illinois vibe which is what I want. Agree on the point on it sounding quite thin though.
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