The Ascension
| Sufjan Stevens
The Ascension
The Ascension is the eighth studio album by American musician Sufjan Stevens. It was released through Asthmatic Kitty on September 25, 2020. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Exhaustive, dense, and detailed, Sufjan Stevens’ electro-opus is another huge artistic leap that speaks plainly to complicated emotions and attempts to rebuild his sound from the ground up.
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The Irish Times
Stevens leaves us not with dissolution, but resolution, for a second act to believe in. Exceptional.
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Vulture
The Ascension is sort of like spending a night out in a club to blow off steam after a bad day; it’s death and gloom until the right beat hits, and your focus shifts to finding someone to provide comfort through the night.
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Uproxx
he album won’t likely empower you to surviving some of the darkest moments in recent history, but gives a snapshot of how one of our most beloved figures is processing. And like his last adventurous solo album, The Age Of Adz, this album leaves the impression that its majesty might grow in time, once freed from the turbulence of 2020.
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The Guardian
Stevens’s The Ascension is a kaleidoscopic reset.
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Paste Magazine
The Ascension is assertive and driven.
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PopMatters
Even though Sufjan Stevens' The Ascension is sometimes too formulaic or trivial to linger, it's still a very good, enjoyable effort.
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musicOMH
He might get judged against his past more than most but The Ascension sees him lay down new paths while very much corroborating his special, loved status.
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London Evening Standard
His voice is as soft and angelic as ever, but he seems to have thrown poetry out with his banjo.
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All Music
The Ascension ranks with Carrie & Lowell as his most personal and affecting work to date.
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The Fire Note
The Ascension is a lush musical banquet, mixing sweets and sours, melodic hooks that linger and scary soundscapes that cut deep. It’s an artful, anguished, self-aware depiction of modern life’s disparities, holding up a mirror to 2020, with a dance track thrown in for good measure.
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Under the Radar Magazine
As is expected of a Sufjan Stevens album, The Ascension is replete with religious iconography and references to ancient myths and monism but perhaps the most poignant is “Gilgamesh.” A semi-mythic king whose fear of death after a dear friend’s demise, prompts him on a quest for mortality—he fails at mortality but the quest itself gives meaning to his life. Stevens admits he is no scientist, politician, or preacher but he recognizes his strength as an individual and us, as a collective, to question, to seek, to affect change.
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Loud and Quiet
The Ascension may become something of a white elephant in Stevens’ discography: an album of lavish assembly, clearly of immense importance to its creator, and, during its best moments, impressively riveting, but also, you suspect, one that few will revisit in its presented form – a record that only the most devoted of Sufjan stans will be able to swallow whole.
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The Independent
A loveably retro fleet of bulky analogue synths course through this record.
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Hotpress
These are difficult times and some of us are going through our own traumas. But this album is empathic and joyous and will give you something to cling onto, even in the darkest hours.
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Magnetic Magazine
many of the songs have a beautiful shine to them with the sheen of prophet synths that lay the foundation for this album.
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The Spokesman-Review
‘The Ascension’ is an eclectic and experimental electronica effort.
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The Wall Street Journal
The indie artist’s latest is a lengthy solo record that offers a harrowing view of the world.
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Crack Magazine
The Ascension is closest to the shimmering synth symphonies and weirdo electronics of The Age of Adz – a sprawling soundtrack for his tender, caressing voice as he sings about doubting his faith and doubting America.
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DIY Magazine
he delivers an all-encompassing sound that captures both the apocalyptic nature of modern society and the possibility of its rebirth.
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It's All Dead
With The Ascension, Sufjan shows that these emotions can coexist with positivity, so even though we may be crying, we may as well dance, too.
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Overblown
it makes The Ascension somehow good, enjoyable, unenjoyable and disappointing at the same time. The uneasy, contradictory and enigmatic Sufjan Stevens strikes again.
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The Student Playlist
A daring and expertly crafted statement that’s a product of its political climate, ‘The Ascension’ is another masterpiece from Sufjan Stevens.
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Beats Per Minute
The Ascension is Sufjan at his most isolated – he has lost hope in nearly everything around him and desperately seeks a cure for a new identity crisis. The music does a good job reflecting his anxious frame of mind, but gradually wears thin over such a long run time. Likely to be divisive amongst his fans, The Ascension is at its best when Sufjan calls forth light in the darkness.
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Pop Goes the Weasel
’ In its place is a vacuum, an empty despair, that Sufjan doesn’t seem to know how to fill. This is a brave album – but not brave enough to articulate an answer or imagine a better tomorrow.
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Metro Weekly
A sprawling epic of an album.
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Belwood Music
The Ascension is a slog. It’s an exhausting, demanding listen. At 80 minutes it’s one of the most excessive and bloated records I’ve come across in recent years (and this coming from a prog fan). While this makes the record a somewhat daunting prospect right from the off, being so drawn out also actively works against what the record is trying to achieve.
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XS Noize
The final verdict is that this album delivers another magnificent dose of Sufjan Stevens’ singular vision and musicality.
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Spill Magazine
The Ascension demonstrates a great deal of growth, expansion, and experimentation in Sufjan Stevens’ work. Not only is it one of his best album–if not his best–it is clearly a contender for Album Of The Year.
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Edinboro Now
With every listen, I find something new that I didn’t catch before. Stevens’ commitment to this unique and artistic soundscape is impressive.
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Sputnik Music
It’s understandable, acceptable, forgivable, even expected for a record focused on disillusionment to make the listener feel disillusioned with the very music itself. That feeling right there - that’s the protest.
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No Ripcord
It means what it says, and it says that Stevens knows what he’s doing and that he’s happy to take us along for the ride.
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Vinyl Chapters
Whisper-voiced genre-hopper Sufjan Stevens serves up a cyborg soundscape of rage, conviction and disenchantment, flecked with moments of joy and levity, which will entice even the most casual listener.
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The Times
complex and thoughtful, but lacking warmth.
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Remo News
Whatever perspective he sings from, he sounds drawn into something elementary, full of purpose and clarity, that follows wherever his vision takes. It looks like itself.
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Stack
Thematically, the album reconciles with his existence and the importance of love, obscuring detail for sweeping statements. The result is Stevens at his most dazzling and profound.
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Brooklyn Vegan
‘The Ascension’ is a masterful piece of global crisis era art.
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The Needle Drop
Though generally not lacking in beauty or scale, The Ascension has a handful of somewhat grating moments that make it harder to love as a holistic experience.
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Slant Magazine
The Ascension Aims for Great Heights but Often Gets Lost.
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The Colombus Dispatch
As usual, Stevens conjures meanings where memories, faith, history, dreams and longing overlap. The album is both a cry of despair and a prayer for the redemption he’s no longer sure he will find.
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The Line of Best Fit
The Ascension, an album that appears to chronicle a crisis of faith with distinct universality.
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Golden Plec
‘The Ascension’ is the opus 2020 needed and while it doesn’t rank as Stevens’ best offerings, it’s another of a number to pass with distinction.
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Rice Thresher
“The Ascension,” is a fabulous listen for those with a little extra time on their hands and an appreciation for the melancholy of aging.
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Mystic Sons
From the start, 'The Ascension' is meant to appear as the black sheep in his catalogue to date. He is no longer interested in following his own formula anymore, and instead treats us to a vast array of sparkling synth-pop offerings that still stay true to his own fixed place on the scene. Enticing and enjoyable throughout, Sufjan Stevens is still managing to spellbind us after twenty in the game.
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Secret Meeting
Make no mistake, this is still sad. But the vibrant electronic arrangements make it lively to match the disillusionment and the aggression you’d suppose he’s channelling. His exploration of new themes, ideas and instrumentation continues.
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The Crimson
‘The Ascension’ is Sufjan Stevens’ Strangest and Best Work Yet.
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NME
Stevens' first solo album since his deeply personal 2015 LP 'Carrie & Lowell' may be uneasy in its outlook, but its pop-leaning soundscape will draw in even the most uncomfortable of listeners.
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The Observer
‘The Ascension’ is some solid Sufjan Stevens.
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Flood Magazine
The Ascension is almost too anxious to bear, but always draws you into its gravitational pull. In short, it’s a 2020 album about self-healing and the wounds that are still fresh.
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Clash Magazine
Define the future, Sufjan urges in his Lamentations. We must. In 2020, something’s definitely on the funeral pyre. What will we build when it’s burned? Let these secular psalms soundtrack all your crises till then.
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Our Culture Magazine
As wearisome as this album can get, Stevens proves that shooting for the stars can result in some of the most rewarding compositions he has ever penned, even if it takes a while to get there.
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Elija Haura
SUFJAN STEVENS’ ABILITY TO TRANSFORM HIS MUSICAL OUTPUT REMAINS ON ‘THE ASCENSION’, AS THE ALBUM STRAYS FROM ANY OF HIS PREVIOUS SOUNDS. SWEEPING ORCHESTRAL SUITES MASH INTO STEVENS’ VOICE WHICH CREATES A UNIQUE AND OFTEN ATTENTION DEMANDING EXPERIENCE.
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The Forty-Five
Overall, ‘The Ascension’ is what you’d call a grower. You could say it was over thought or self-indulgent and the latter maybe true, but you get the impression that Stevens has made precisely the record he wanted to make, with little concern about success or satisfying the fans he amassed on ‘Carrie and Lowell’. Does that make it his best work? Probably not. Does he care? Not one bit.
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