It begins with a farewell: In “Goodbye Evergreen,” the opening of “Javelin,” a relationship comes to an end. “Think of me what you will/ I grow like a cancer,” sings Sufjan Stevens. “I’m pressed out in the rain/ Deliver me from the poisoned pain.” Then the previously gentle song breaks into a loud crescendo of programmed drums and seemingly beautiful harmonies. More often on “Javelin,” Stevens sings about how he despairs of himself. Some images are so dark that you worry about the singer’s well-being. For example, in the nature-mystical text of “A Running Start,” in which Stevens looks into the eyes of a water snake and becomes one with the fish. In “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” the singer asks the same thing with great vulnerability.
Some images are so dark that you worry about the singer’s well-being
Two or three songs in the middle address God or the divine or love. “Jesus, lift me up to a higher plane/Can you come around before I go insane?” asks “Everything That Rises,” then this song also dissolves with uncanny grace. Is “Javelin” (“Speer”) a breakup album? Perhaps the artist will talk about it in an art book that will accompany the publication. The music combines the achievements of this career and mostly contrasts the pain with beauty. The songwriter-folk of “Carrie & Lowell” defines the feel of the album, but the fairy orchestra of “Illinois” can also be heard, although it plays in a less complex way.
The electronics of “The Age Of Adz” return in the form of cool, voluminous Eighties drum machines. The tender waltz “My Red Little Fox”, the hypnotic piano in “So You Are Tired”: the wonderful twists that Stevens came up with from the start appear everywhere. “I was born invisible,” he sings in a moment that seems to contain a lot of trauma energy. Invisible perhaps, but incredibly audible. A consolation at the end: Stevens sings Neil Young’s “There’s A World” to the ukulele: “There’s a world you’re living in/ No one else has your part/ All God’s children in the wind/ Take it in and blow real hard.
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