The (s)Wheat Spot!

!ll!no!s

Last post about Sufjan Stevens' album Illinois, I promise.

Today is supposed to be the official release date for Sufjan's new album, and it's out on iTunes and Asthmatic Kitty, but as I read on Pitchfork, who gave the album a 9.2 (the best Pitchfork review all year, according to Stereogum), the album's release will be delayed until they work out the copyright issues with DC comics about putting Superman on the cover.



I got the one with the Man of Steel on the cover before the eBay blood-suckers started closing in. Too bad I opened mine.

Just a few words about the album: Buy it. It's thick with multi-instrumental layers, a la Brian Wilson (but with less insanity). Sufjan writes songs with feeling, meaning, and pathos. He's a believer, and his faith comes through the music, but never in a heavy-handed way at all. He writes songs from the perspective of faith, but never comes across preachy or trite.

In "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.," about the serial killer, he exhibits pathos and an understanding of sin when he sings, "And on my best behavior/I am really just like him/Look beneath the floorboards/For the secrets I have hid".

"Casimir Pulaski Day" plays out like a conversation between Sufjan and a friend with cancer, not glossing over the sickness, nor God's ability to heal, while also dealing with the sweetness and disappointment of life with a dying friend, "Tuesday night at the Bible study/We lift our hands and pray over your body/But nothing ever happens".

My favorite songs are probably these two and "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out To Get Us!" "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh!" "The Seer's Tower," and "Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!"

I really can't say enough good stuff about this album. Some of the songs have already made it onto the rarified air of my iTunes Top 25 Most Played. That's not an easy task for a CD I've had for just over a week in its entirety.

posted by paul @ 2:33 PM