Once, when Sufjan Stevens was in college, he brought an injured crow to the biology lab to save its life. “You're doing the universe a big favor,” a woman who ran an animal shelter told him as soon as he called her on stage. That's one of the many stories Stevens tells in his 10-part essay included on the elaborate physical edition of his latest album, Javelin, all in the service of exploring his ever-expanding definition of “love.” He writes in a curious and self-aware tone, joking about how this experience with the crow provided “endless fodder” for his collective creative writing: “So much meaning, so little time,” he muses. But if a young Sufjan once sought these encounters for their symbolic potential, today's author of this essay and these songs tells a more pressing story: even more meaning, even less time.
Again and again Javelin, Stevens ponders the ending. At times his language, along with the silent longing of his voice and the romantic sweep of his mostly acoustic instrumentation, suggest the end of a very long relationship. “I'll always love you/But I can't look at you,” he explains, tracing the broken logic behind loss. “It's a terrible thought to have and hold,” she admits after wishing badly on someone she once loved. “Will anyone ever love me?” he asks next.
Immediately, the songwriting is as raw and direct as ever. And indeed, Javelin It's Stevens' first proper album in a long time that seems designed without much of an idea to unify the material or inspire theatrical arrangements. No autobiographical knowledge that will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about him. no annoying music change to remind you it's a proud member of the Beyhive. Running under 45 minutes, Javelin begins with a purposeful inhale and ends with a cover of a deep cut from Neil Young's best-selling album – a track that Stevens manages to make sound even sweeter and more hopeful than the 1972 original.
Like many of his seminal works, Stevens wrote, recorded and produced Javelin almost entirely alone, minus a few key appearances: some guitar from The National's Bryce Dessner on the dazzling eight-minute “Shit Talk,” and frequent vocal accompaniment from a small choir that includes Megan Lui, Hannah Cohen, Pauline Delassus, Nedelle Torrisi, and the activist and author Adrienne Maree Brown. It has at least one song that immediately joins the ranks of his best (“Will Anybody Ever Love Me?”) and several that draw direct lines to previous high marks, both thematically and musically. Focusing on the worshipful melodies and poignant intimacy that marked his early masterpieces, it's the type of record, two decades into an artist's career, that tends to be called a “return to form,” suggesting an embrace of his potential and a diminished instinct for surprise or challenge.
