‘Javelin’ Review: Sufjan Stevens’ World is Abundant

“The world is abundant,” Sufjan Stevens often announces on his blog, alongside photos of flowers, landscapes, and loved ones. Yet Stevens is best-known for his music about loss, from the melancholy single “Mystery of Love” to the grief-centered album “Carrie & Lowell.” It’s not surprising that “Javelin,” released on Oct. 6, is a breathtaking exploration of sorrow.

The slow piano chords and mournful lyrics of the opening track set up expectations for a subdued style. Soon, however, “Javelin” expands into an animated collage of sound. Stevens’ 10th studio album ascends to new heights of compositional complexity and emotional lyricism. Dedicated to his late partner and best friend Evans Richardson, “Javelin” certainly wields the power to inspire tears, but also — in a rare feat — the sense that life is more beautiful, profound, and holy than can be expressed without music.

In all aspects of its composition, “Javelin” conveys that love elevates the earthly towards the heavenly. Stevens asks again and again for love: to be kissed, to be held, to be lifted, to be shown paradise. In “A Running Start,” lyrics centered on bodily sensation bridge physical affection with spiritual euphoria. Ascending melodies are caught and carried forward by choirs of feminine voices. “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” is narrated from the perspective of Jesus Christ, yearning for the love he can’t be sure of after self-sacrifice. Though perhaps less original than previous songs with similar premises, its lyrics are powerfully earnest, wishing to be loved “for good reasons / without grievance, not for sport.”

“Javelin”’s deep intimacy exists within a wild, divine world. In “Genuflecting Ghost” and “My Red Little Fox,” Stevens illustrates the overlap between passion and destruction. He beckons his lover to “dance in our catastrophe” and “kiss me with the fire of gods.” In the follow-up “Javelin (To Have And To Hold),” Stevens quietly reckons with the possibility of hurting his lover: “There’d be blood in the place / where you stood / It’s a terrible thought / to have and to hold.” Blurring the line between tangible and intangible, Stevens’ lyrics cannot handle the full weight of their consequences. They silhouette mystical emotion with negative space.

In most of the tracks, folksy string openings unfold into sprawling layers of instrumentation. Stevens’ whispery voice twists with emotion and leaps into declarations of longing: the first track’s “Goodbye evergreen / You know I love you” transforms into “I don’t wanna fight at all / I will always love you” in the penultimate track “Shit Talk.” The instrumentation crests, then rolls back into washes of sound. Stevens mixes ethereal strings, lush percussion, synth concoctions, and otherworldly choruses to carry the feeling of transcendence through every single song.

The album’s spectacular style is the product of 20 years of experimentation. “Javelin” weaves the folksiness of “Seven Swans” and “Carrie and Lowell” with the rhythmic electronica of “The Age of Adz” and even the percussive choruses of Christmas album “Silver and Gold.” But “Javelin” is more than the sum of its inspirational parts, its romantic vulnerability and symphonic instrumentation fusing with indie folk essence to showcase Stevens at his truest and best.

“Javelin”’s final two tracks are flawless fruits of the album’s emotional ripening. “Shit Talk,” like many of Stevens’ best songs, is ambitiously long at eight minutes. Bursting with orchestral melodies and the heartbreak of “I will always love you / but I cannot look at you,” it nearly engulfs the album’s emotional landscape with its crashing farewell. However, a cover of Neil Young’s “There’s a World” tempers the prior track’s devastation with the soft hope of a world with “good things / in the air for me and you.” This world is not heaven, but the one we live in. On the track, Stevens asks the listener to “take it in,” and after “Javelin,” one feels filled with its beauty, its grief, its love, and its abundance.

—Staff writer Isabelle A. Lu can be reached at isabelle.lu@thecrimson.com.