Eugene is so sweet, funny and personal.
this is the only Sufjan album without filler. Every song is great and it wastes no time. Even a shorter record like Seven Swans has an indulgent misstep or two. He's a man on a mission with C&L. To me, that's new territory. I've always seen Illinois as an impressive but missed opportunity at 70+ minutes. It takes maturity to pare things back to the essentials.
That's probably the last song I would pick from the album as being a rehash. That track sounds more like Hospice or something from the last Grouper record than his older work. It utilizes an ambient/drone backing to add texture to the negative space (as do many other outros on the album), whereas a song like Casimir Pulaski Day or John Wayne Gacy Jr. is crystal clear, quiet and austere. The atmosphere of the album is totally different from his previous works. It's like he added film grain to the picture. For an album with just a few ingredients, that's more than just "pretty new production," it fundamentally impacts the way the songs come across.
And he's still the same man, you know. Just one guy. He's going to have similar deliveries and subjects. But hell, even the subjects are different, or at least the perspective. There's a newfound cynicism and doubt in a track like No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross and the character portraits have fresh new protagonists. Eugene is so sweet, funny and personal.
Most importantly: this is the only Sufjan album without filler. Every song is great and it wastes no time. Even a shorter record like Seven Swans has an indulgent misstep or two. He's a man on a mission with C&L. To me, that's new territory. I've always seen Illinois as an impressive but missed opportunity at 70+ minutes. It takes maturity to pare things back to the essentials.
That's probably the last song I would pick from the album as being a rehash. That track sounds more like Hospice or something from the last Grouper record than his older work. It utilizes an ambient/drone backing to add texture to the negative space (as do many other outros on the album), whereas a song like Casimir Pulaski Day or John Wayne Gacy Jr. is crystal clear, quiet and austere. The atmosphere of the album is totally different from his previous works. It's like he added film grain to the picture. For an album with just a few ingredients, that's more than just "pretty new production," it fundamentally impacts the way the songs come across.
And he's still the same man, you know. Just one guy. He's going to have similar deliveries and subjects. But hell, even the subjects are different, or at least the perspective. There's a newfound cynicism and doubt in a track like No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross and the character portraits have fresh new protagonists. Eugene is so sweet, funny and personal.
Most importantly: this is the only Sufjan album without filler. Every song is great and it wastes no time. Even a shorter record like Seven Swans has an indulgent misstep or two. He's a man on a mission with C&L. To me, that's new territory. I've always seen Illinois as an impressive but missed opportunity at 70+ minutes. It takes maturity to pare things back to the essentials.
Lyrically I think Carrie & Lowell stands head and shoulders above the rest of his work, I think. It's a deeply mature record. Early Sufjan was a lot more optimistic, with those very strong religious overtones (it's easy to forget how much skepticism it faced because of its religious nature). In Carrie & Lowell, there are few instances of that optimism and, I feel, more self-doubt (even though it's also a very forgiving record in relation to his mother).
Yeah, not to pile on Bono212 here, but the lyrics of C&L pull off the very rare feat of being emotionally naked without becoming cartoonish or mawkish, if that makes sense. He could so easily have come across as sympathy-mongering, but instead he makes his own ordeal into something so very relatable: the merging of the personal and the universal on this album is astounding. As much as I love Pulaski Day, that song is still a vignette rather than a resounding statement of the likes found on C&L.
I'm starting to think C&L is an all-timer; probably the 2nd best album of the decade so far in my estimation.
The last two songs are both fantastic yes with these parts the highlights. My favorite is Vesuvius though. It has such a gorgeous melody.I Want to Be Well is a favorite mine. The "I'm not fucking around" section at the end is the high point of the album, along with the "it's a long life" part in Impossible Soul that you pointed out.
In the moment, I was stoic and phlegmatic and practical, but in the months following I was manic and frantic and disparaging and angry. They always talk about the science of bereavement, and how there is a measurable pattern and cycle of grief, but my experience was lacking in any kind of natural trajectory. It felt really sporadic and convoluted. I would have a period of rigorous, emotionless work, and then I would be struck by deep sadness triggered by something really mundane, like a dead pigeon on the subway track. Or my niece would point out polka-dotted tights at the playground, and I would suffer some kind of cosmic anguish in public. It's weird.
But I contrast it with this interview - True Myth: A Conversation With Sufjan Stevens | Pitchfork - i