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"The Age Of Adz" (pronounced Odds) is Sufjan Stevens’ first full-length collection of original songs since 2005’s conceptual pop opus "Illinois".

This new album is probably his most unusual, first, for its lack of conceptual underpinnings, and second, for its extensive use of electronics. The album almost entirely eschews the songwriter’s former tools of the trade - acoustic instruments that accompany an expansive narrative scope.

While the sounds on this record are distinctly “artificial” (drum machines and analogue synthesizers reign supreme), the proclamations of the songs are unabashedly visceral, sung loudly, with a backdrop of insistent orchestration.

The result is an album that is perhaps more vibrant, more primary, and more explicit than anything Sufjan has done before, incorporating themes that are neither historical nor civic, but rather personal and primal (if even a little juvenile). Love, sex, death, disease, illness, anxiety, and suicide make appearances in an aggressive (and sometimes danceable) tapestry of electronic pop, conveyed with the urgency, immediacy, and anxiety of primary colours.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: No overall theme on this album but it's mainly concerned with love and loss. Subtle electronics take centre stage proving to be a perfect foil for his slightly mournful vocals, and giving the overall sound a spacey cosmic feel. This is Sufjan at his supreme best!