Sufjan Stevens – ‘Javelin’ album review: a sublime return
Fans of Sufjan Stevens’ well-loved 2015 release, Carrie and Lowell, will be excited to discover that the musician’s latest effort, Javelin, sees him return to a similar sonic palette. While Stevens has experimented with various genres over the years, he proves to be on top form when he is led by an acoustic guitar or gentle piano notes.
On Javelin, Stevens blends natural, pastoral imagery with themes of religion, love and longing, creating a profoundly evocative lyrical web of intimate yet universal meditations. Quite frankly, Javelin is a transcendent listening experience, with divine choral backing vocals, flutes and chiming sounds giving the soundscape a heavenly sensibility. Lyrically, Stevens lays his soul bare in a deeply personal way, yet simultaneously, his words are elusive enough for us to project our own meanings and experiences onto.
The record opens with the soul-crushing lines, “Goodbye, Evergreen / You know I love you / But everything heaven-sent / Must burn out in the end”. Sung to the accompaniment of simple guitars, the track builds dramatically before crashing down with the devastation and emotional complexity reflected in the lyrics. ‘Goodbye Evergreen’ jolts the listener into submission, setting us up for an album of conflicting emotions, moving between pure love and intense longing.
In typical Stevens fashion, he blurs the lines between religious and romantic devotion. On ‘Genuflecting Ghost’, a soulful number with powerful female backing vocals and a stomping beat, Stevens sings, “Bind me, insult/ As I praise your name” before he gives himself “as a sacrifice”. Evidently, romance and religion aren’t far removed for Stevens, singing lines such as “kiss me with the fire of gods” on ‘My Red Little Fox’. It’s one of the album’s standout moments, with angelic melodies sweeping us into a sublime state, where Stevens pleads, “My love, my queen, my spoken Dreams come save me”.
Sometimes Stevens’ needs are laid out explicitly, such as in ‘Will Anybody Ever Love Me?’, a song that invites consideration of the true meaning of the word, with the singer yet again connoting love with nature and religion, all while sparse guitars build towards a percussive end.
Meanwhile, melancholic piano gives way to one of the album’s saddest cuts, ‘So You Are Tired’, wherein Stevens reckons with a failing relationship. He tenderly sings, “I was the man still in love with you/ When I already knew it was done.” Yet the warmth of the backing vocals prevents the song from feeling completely hopeless – instead imbuing it with an element of community and solidarity.
While most tracks come in under five minutes, the penultimate track, ‘Shit Talk’ is an eight-and-a-half-minute journey through heartbreak, with Stevens beautifully capturing the end of a relationship where love still lingers despite the failure of the connection. The track’s instrumentals brace us tight as Stevens and his backing vocalists repeat, “I will always love you” and “I don’t wanna fight at all” in a euphoric frenzy.
Stevens’ tenth album is proof that his long-spanning career has only allowed his songwriting talents to become even more magnificent. With Javelin, Stevens creates an intimate collection of tracks rich with emotion, yet there’s a sense of understanding and hopefulness at the heart of each track.
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