Sufjan Stevens: The Age Of Adz – review

Since 2005's Illinoise , Sufjan Stevens has become more composer/arranger than singer-songwriter, guesting on albums and hymning the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. His latest LP was inspired not by a US road, but by paranoiac spiritualist and outsider artist Royal Robertson; it finds Stevens back on track with lengthy, glitchy, almost R&B-derived work designed to confound memories of Stevens the orchestral-folk pin-up. The aptly-named "Too Much" finds string arpeggios vying with wild electronics while Sufjan auditions for TV On the Radio. Repeated listens expose the juicy stuff: volcanoes ("Vesuvius"), crocheting ("Futile Devices") and running through the night with a knife stuck in one's chest ("I Walked").